It might be that stuff like BvS had me really down on DC properties of late, and maybe some hesitancy based on how the Arkham games could be kind of crummy on stuff like gender and costume design, and maybe that the Game of Thrones game was hot garbage, but I was really pleasantly surprised. I'm fine with the story hitting similar beats to the old stuff, but the way they've altered
The Penguin, and the way they're trying to focus on Bruce trying to positively influence Gotham outside of the suit by charming philanthropists and investing in an Arkham replacement, aaaaand the whole Waynes twist
Make me confident that while this episode played it safe, the following ones will try to play with the formula and go somewhere new with it.
It feels weird that he's at a point where he can have perfectly cordial conversations with Jim - updating him on break ins, sharing theories at crime scenes - but other cops seem to have a shoot on sight policy for him that Gordon doesn't seem to have drilled out of them yet. The former suggests he's been doing this long enough to build relationships, but the latter suggests he's still at the 'rumour and treated as just another criminal' phase.
It feels weird that he's at a point where he can have perfectly cordial conversations with Jim - updating him on break ins, sharing theories at crime scenes - but other cops seem to have a shoot on sight policy for him that Gordon doesn't seem to have drilled out of them yet. The former suggests he's been doing this long enough to build relationships, but the latter suggests he's still at the 'rumour and treated as just another criminal' phase.
Guessing (based purely on this information) that they're shortly after Year One or so
In spirit, at least
The cops still treating Batman like a threat but Gordon trusting him almost implicitly makes me think of that story, at any rate. That's about where the ending landed, if I remember correctly
Oh man somehow this has one of the hardest choices of any Telltale thing
I AGONIZED over to give the evidence to Vicki or Gordon
My thought there is I trust both of them, but Gordon could easily be shut down
What made me go with Gordon is everyone knows Falcone is dirty, including the cops and especially the press, but they can't do anything with it without hard evidence, so they're the people that need it most
Oh man somehow this has one of the hardest choices of any Telltale thing
I AGONIZED over to give the evidence to Vicki or Gordon
My thought there is I trust both of them, but Gordon could easily be shut down
What made me go with Gordon is everyone knows Falcone is dirty, including the cops and especially the press, but they can't do anything with it without hard evidence, so they're the people that need it most
That was a super tough choice
In the end I gave it to Vicki, because she'd proven that she was a journalist with integrity. While I knew Gordon was a good guy, he was still a lowly Lieutennant, and it would have been all too easy for the evidence to get buried and nothing to be done if Falcone had folks higher up in the chain of command.
Whereas throwing all the evidence public would likely force the police to investigate anyway, with the side benefit of hopefully clearing the name of the Waynes.
Oh man somehow this has one of the hardest choices of any Telltale thing
I AGONIZED over to give the evidence to Vicki or Gordon
My thought there is I trust both of them, but Gordon could easily be shut down
What made me go with Gordon is everyone knows Falcone is dirty, including the cops and especially the press, but they can't do anything with it without hard evidence, so they're the people that need it most
it seemed like a non choice to me because Gordon is an infinitely more important character in the batman mythos. He was practically bats's partner in the Nolan movies, he was mecha batman recently in the comics.
It crossed my mind that yeah, maybe Gordon's hands would be tied if the police are that corrupt, but that wasn't the case at all.
The graph at the end said like 90% of everybody chose Gordon.
Oh man somehow this has one of the hardest choices of any Telltale thing
I AGONIZED over to give the evidence to Vicki or Gordon
My thought there is I trust both of them, but Gordon could easily be shut down
What made me go with Gordon is everyone knows Falcone is dirty, including the cops and especially the press, but they can't do anything with it without hard evidence, so they're the people that need it most
it seemed like a non choice to me because Gordon is an infinitely more important character in the batman mythos. He was practically bats's partner in the Nolan movies, he was mecha batman recently in the comics.
It crossed my mind that yeah, maybe Gordon's hands would be tied if the police are that corrupt, but that wasn't the case at all.
The graph at the end said like 90% of everybody chose Gordon.
Sure, but that's metatextual and doesn't really have anything to do with the story they're telling in that moment
Just on what they have set up in the series itself, Gordon is a lieutenant who is on Batman's side and is actively investigating Bruce for corruption, and Vicki is an intrepid reporter who has already pledged her support to Bruce
They are equally trustworthy at that point, Vicki just didn't have the good fortune of being played by Gary Oldman in several popular movies
And considering how many of the Batman sacred cows they have already changed, Gordon being Batman's best friend could not remain the case
The Waynes being portrayed as anything other than saintly is borderline sacrilege and I am all for it, Alfred being complicit in it is a fantastic twist too
Their version of Oswald is also awesome, I would love to see that becoming a Mr. Freeze in the animated series-esque complete revitalization of the character
And the best part of them taking their time setting up Penguin and (almost certainly) Two-Face?
There probably won't be even a little of the goddamned Joker
The Waynes being portrayed as anything other than saintly is borderline sacrilege and I am all for it, Alfred being complicit in it is a fantastic twist too
Their version of Oswald is also awesome, I would love to see that becoming a Mr. Freeze in the animated series-esque complete revitalization of the character
And the best part of them taking their time setting up Penguin and (almost certainly) Two-Face?
There probably won't be even a little of the goddamned Joker
well let's not speak too soon, as the episode descriptions seem to suggest there's gonna be a big arkham breakout later on
That was a pretty solid opening. Like others have said, nothing too amazing, but a lot of solid groundwork that could payoff well in future episodes.
There were a few new mechanics introduced that I'm hoping they continue to expand on. First one was the way you planned out the attack on Falcone's club. Telltale has made enough of these games that it's pretty common knowledge by now that players really don't have that much agency on effecting the narrative of the story. Changing out storylines is just too massive to realistically expect. A fight scene, on the other hand, must be orders of magnitude more simple to alter in more drastic ways. You want to trip this guy up with a batarang, or just collapse the floor beneath him? Launch somebody out a window, or knock bookcase over on them? It gives the player control to choose how they want things to go, with immediate visual feedback that they have made something happen, without potentially breaking the story. Ironically, for a point-and-click narrative focused game, the most effective way to give players agency might be in the combat sections. Letting the player plan out what they want to do in advance is a great way to do that.
The other new mechanic I liked was the crime scene linking clues together. It was pretty basic in the way it was used this time, but hopefully it'll act as a tutorial and allow for more complicated investigations in future episodes. Ideally, I'd love for it to get to the level of investigation in the Sherlock Holmes games, where you not only link the clues together, but then need to deduce what you can learn from it, including making wrong assumptions that can royally fuck up your case, but I know that's pretty unlikely. Still, it's a lot better then just clicking on a clue and having the batcomputer tell you what it means like in the Arkham games.
I'm also a big fan of the choice to set this early on in Batman's career, before some of the villains have even become villainous. That knowledge of what has traditionally happened with them is a sword of Damocles hanging over every action you have with them, but it's also driving you to try and shepard them onto a different path to avoid that fate. There are so many interesting things they could do with Harvey and Oswald. It might be inevitable, and both will turn on you. Your actions could also have a real effect on them. It might already be determined that one of them will become an enemy by the end of the series, but your actions could decide which one falls. Something like that would be more difficult in one of their other series, since they would need to develop two new characters even though only one will get used in a story. Here they already have decades of stories to help either way. Or they could both be red herrings and remain allies throughout the series, saving the potential for the turn in a later series.
And while the Batman parts are fun, it's the Bruce Wayne parts that are really sticking out to me. He is just such a good character for Telltale's style of play. The old adage is that Batman is his real identity, while Bruce is the character he disguises himself as, and that is exactly what you are doing in the game. All of your dialog choices are about deciding what kind of Bruce you'll pretend to be. You can be yourself around Alfred, at least until the ending of this episode, but everyone else you deal with, you're trying to manipulate them into helping you, or trying to determine how much you can help them without exposing yourself. It all feels so natural and really lets you get into the role.
The one real stand out scene for me is when you are out talking with Harvey, and he introduces you to Selina. On it's face, it's a pretty normal, even cliche, story beat. You've got two characters who know a secret, each trying to outmaneuver the other with an oblivious third party in danger of learning what's going on. You've seen it played out a hundred times before, but when you are directly involved with it, it's suddenly one of the most thrilling sections I've played. Normally, the timer on choices feels like a necessary evil to keep dialog moving at a normal pace, but in this one, you are frantically trying to come up with excuses for her attacks, and just as quickly parrying to turn them back against her. All the while, desperately hoping that Harvey doesn't catch on to what you two are really talking about. And it's excellently shot too. As the camera pans in to focus solely on Bruce and Selina, Harvey is left to speak while completely off camera, as neither Bruce, Selina or the player actually care about whatever he is talking about. It's probably the best verbal dueling I've ever seen in a game. Troy Baker and Laura Bailey just have the greatest chemistry, so I'll be happy if Telltale keeps using them together.
All that said though, this is easily the buggiest Telltale game I've ever played. I've played pretty much everything they've made on pc, and never ran into any the problems that others talked about, but just about everything broke this time. I've had some pretty bad framerates and lagging scene transitions. There were three crashes to desktop which then meant replaying entire sections. The in-game codex is accessible from both the main menu and the computer in the batcave, but the batcave one doesn't have an exit option which forced me to manually terminate the game. The achievements page on steam straight up doesn't seem to exist.
And the final page that breaks down all your choices to compare them with everybody else, only shows my choice for the final option. So if anybody would be kind enough to post a spoiler about what the choices were, I'd be super grateful. All I know right now is that for the final choice I went with
Arresting Falcone with about 90% of the audience, and not brutalizing him like the other 10% of apparently huge Zack Synder fans.
I don't think we're supposed to be reading the Bruce sections as pretending anything
I'm taking it at face value that when I pick a dialogue option Bruce is totally sincere about it
I would imagine it is also likely due to Fables not being remotely as recognizable of a brand as Batman, The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones. Plus, A Wolf Among Us is the perfect noir title.
So I got this and just got the 1.2 achievement and am
going to meet Oswald in the park
and this is probably my favorite Batman related media since Brave and the Bold? It is both the perfect serious but not too serious tone of Batman I love and the early days in his career where he is still tangling with the mob and all of his villains haven't shown up setting I enjoy the most.
The Court of Owls are going to come into play here.
When you first meet the two rich Wayne Enterprises board members the lady says that the old money in Gotham should flock together "like birds" and a lot of the plot seems like it is going to focus on Thomas and Martha's past
The attempt to discredit the Wayne name being not by Falcone and the Mayor but instead by the Court because Bruce is shaking up the status quo and would make it harder for them to operate seems pretty plausible to me
especially if it takes the form of The Court vs. whatever forces Oswald shakes up since he seems like a proper anarchist and hates old money
The Court of Owls are going to come into play here.
When you first meet the two rich Wayne Enterprises board members the lady says that the old money in Gotham should flock together "like birds" and a lot of the plot seems like it is going to focus on Thomas and Martha's past
The attempt to discredit the Wayne name being not by Falcone and the Mayor but instead by the Court because Bruce is shaking up the status quo and would make it harder for them to operate seems pretty plausible to me
especially if it takes the form of The Court vs. whatever forces Oswald shakes up since he seems like a proper anarchist and hates old money
court is probably what destroyed the cobblepot family too
I am super interested in seeing what other villains they pull in
Harvey is obviously a ticking time bomb on that front and Selina seems like she's gonna be around for most of the season
To be honest
I thought they were setting up Deadshot with the sniper bit since they mentioned the trickiness of the shots and you found the cigarette on the railing, glad they didn't though as that would have been a bit much
Scarecrow seems likely given the chemicals, but I kind of hope they do another swerve there as Scarecrow has been done a whole bunch in Batman media recently and I'd like to see someone else get a spotlight
I am playing like, the nicest Bruce there has ever been
But are you playing the nastiest Batman ever seen to balance it out?
I want to be a Bruce who's all sincere that we need to treat and rehabilitate our criminals, then goes out looking for arms to break.
Posts
which tech color did you pick? I went with purple
does it affect his car color? My car was red.
Blue tech, car still red
It seems like a big, big part of the Bruce plot this season will be trying to replace Arkham, which I don't think I've ever seen a Batman story do
They just all take Arkham as an assumption of the world despite it being a horrible horrible place
It might be that stuff like BvS had me really down on DC properties of late, and maybe some hesitancy based on how the Arkham games could be kind of crummy on stuff like gender and costume design, and maybe that the Game of Thrones game was hot garbage, but I was really pleasantly surprised. I'm fine with the story hitting similar beats to the old stuff, but the way they've altered
Make me confident that while this episode played it safe, the following ones will try to play with the formula and go somewhere new with it.
3DS Friend Code: 0216-0898-6512
Switch Friend Code: SW-7437-1538-7786
And it doesn't come out well in Arkham's favor, cause oh my GOD are they doing these characters so so well
Of COURSE they figure each other out instantaneously
Guessing (based purely on this information) that they're shortly after Year One or so
In spirit, at least
Maybe they'll touch on that in future episodes!
PSN ID : DetectiveOlivaw | TWITTER | STEAM ID | NEVER FORGET
My thought there is I trust both of them, but Gordon could easily be shut down
What made me go with Gordon is everyone knows Falcone is dirty, including the cops and especially the press, but they can't do anything with it without hard evidence, so they're the people that need it most
That was a super tough choice
Whereas throwing all the evidence public would likely force the police to investigate anyway, with the side benefit of hopefully clearing the name of the Waynes.
3DS Friend Code: 0216-0898-6512
Switch Friend Code: SW-7437-1538-7786
It crossed my mind that yeah, maybe Gordon's hands would be tied if the police are that corrupt, but that wasn't the case at all.
The graph at the end said like 90% of everybody chose Gordon.
Just on what they have set up in the series itself, Gordon is a lieutenant who is on Batman's side and is actively investigating Bruce for corruption, and Vicki is an intrepid reporter who has already pledged her support to Bruce
They are equally trustworthy at that point, Vicki just didn't have the good fortune of being played by Gary Oldman in several popular movies
And considering how many of the Batman sacred cows they have already changed, Gordon being Batman's best friend could not remain the case
Much easier to feel more involved in the way the story is playing out that way
3DS Friend Code: 0216-0898-6512
Switch Friend Code: SW-7437-1538-7786
Man oh man, I loved this to pieces
The Waynes being portrayed as anything other than saintly is borderline sacrilege and I am all for it, Alfred being complicit in it is a fantastic twist too
Their version of Oswald is also awesome, I would love to see that becoming a Mr. Freeze in the animated series-esque complete revitalization of the character
And the best part of them taking their time setting up Penguin and (almost certainly) Two-Face?
There probably won't be even a little of the goddamned Joker
The other new mechanic I liked was the crime scene linking clues together. It was pretty basic in the way it was used this time, but hopefully it'll act as a tutorial and allow for more complicated investigations in future episodes. Ideally, I'd love for it to get to the level of investigation in the Sherlock Holmes games, where you not only link the clues together, but then need to deduce what you can learn from it, including making wrong assumptions that can royally fuck up your case, but I know that's pretty unlikely. Still, it's a lot better then just clicking on a clue and having the batcomputer tell you what it means like in the Arkham games.
I'm also a big fan of the choice to set this early on in Batman's career, before some of the villains have even become villainous. That knowledge of what has traditionally happened with them is a sword of Damocles hanging over every action you have with them, but it's also driving you to try and shepard them onto a different path to avoid that fate. There are so many interesting things they could do with Harvey and Oswald. It might be inevitable, and both will turn on you. Your actions could also have a real effect on them. It might already be determined that one of them will become an enemy by the end of the series, but your actions could decide which one falls. Something like that would be more difficult in one of their other series, since they would need to develop two new characters even though only one will get used in a story. Here they already have decades of stories to help either way. Or they could both be red herrings and remain allies throughout the series, saving the potential for the turn in a later series.
And while the Batman parts are fun, it's the Bruce Wayne parts that are really sticking out to me. He is just such a good character for Telltale's style of play. The old adage is that Batman is his real identity, while Bruce is the character he disguises himself as, and that is exactly what you are doing in the game. All of your dialog choices are about deciding what kind of Bruce you'll pretend to be. You can be yourself around Alfred, at least until the ending of this episode, but everyone else you deal with, you're trying to manipulate them into helping you, or trying to determine how much you can help them without exposing yourself. It all feels so natural and really lets you get into the role.
The one real stand out scene for me is when you are out talking with Harvey, and he introduces you to Selina. On it's face, it's a pretty normal, even cliche, story beat. You've got two characters who know a secret, each trying to outmaneuver the other with an oblivious third party in danger of learning what's going on. You've seen it played out a hundred times before, but when you are directly involved with it, it's suddenly one of the most thrilling sections I've played. Normally, the timer on choices feels like a necessary evil to keep dialog moving at a normal pace, but in this one, you are frantically trying to come up with excuses for her attacks, and just as quickly parrying to turn them back against her. All the while, desperately hoping that Harvey doesn't catch on to what you two are really talking about. And it's excellently shot too. As the camera pans in to focus solely on Bruce and Selina, Harvey is left to speak while completely off camera, as neither Bruce, Selina or the player actually care about whatever he is talking about. It's probably the best verbal dueling I've ever seen in a game. Troy Baker and Laura Bailey just have the greatest chemistry, so I'll be happy if Telltale keeps using them together.
All that said though, this is easily the buggiest Telltale game I've ever played. I've played pretty much everything they've made on pc, and never ran into any the problems that others talked about, but just about everything broke this time. I've had some pretty bad framerates and lagging scene transitions. There were three crashes to desktop which then meant replaying entire sections. The in-game codex is accessible from both the main menu and the computer in the batcave, but the batcave one doesn't have an exit option which forced me to manually terminate the game. The achievements page on steam straight up doesn't seem to exist.
And the final page that breaks down all your choices to compare them with everybody else, only shows my choice for the final option. So if anybody would be kind enough to post a spoiler about what the choices were, I'd be super grateful. All I know right now is that for the final choice I went with
I'm taking it at face value that when I pick a dialogue option Bruce is totally sincere about it
Steam ID - VeldrinD | SS Post | Wishlist
They didn't give it a dang name
It wasn't called Fables: A Telltale Game Series
Give it a name! I have to call it "Telltale Batman" every time now!
The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones both just use the generic title with "A Telltale Game Series" attached to the back of it
So play it already
No way that should be the dialog after the choices I made. It was the exact opposite.
The lip syncing in FFX was better.
I mean all the character work in Arkham is toilet
It is so good
Speculation:
When you first meet the two rich Wayne Enterprises board members the lady says that the old money in Gotham should flock together "like birds" and a lot of the plot seems like it is going to focus on Thomas and Martha's past
The attempt to discredit the Wayne name being not by Falcone and the Mayor but instead by the Court because Bruce is shaking up the status quo and would make it harder for them to operate seems pretty plausible to me
especially if it takes the form of The Court vs. whatever forces Oswald shakes up since he seems like a proper anarchist and hates old money
Harvey is obviously a ticking time bomb on that front and Selina seems like she's gonna be around for most of the season
To be honest
Scarecrow seems likely given the chemicals, but I kind of hope they do another swerve there as Scarecrow has been done a whole bunch in Batman media recently and I'd like to see someone else get a spotlight
But are you playing the nastiest Batman ever seen to balance it out?
I want to be a Bruce who's all sincere that we need to treat and rehabilitate our criminals, then goes out looking for arms to break.
How did it take this long to get Sully to play a gangster, seriously