They’re both on shady ground when they meet, Fiona running a scam with her sister Sasha, and Rhys trying to screw over his corporate Hyperion boss with his best friend Vaughn. They’re a funny, self-interested pair with questionable morals-almost, but not quite a cheeseball bickering anime duo. I love the main characters-Fiona and Rhys-who are sardonic, conflicted, and cute but not nauseatingly so. There are are plenty of gruesome deaths, to be sure, but Telltale has created a stand-alone comedy adventure that succeeds because of great storytelling, not ‘midget psychos’ or freaking Claptrap. It’s not serious, but finds its levity through character-driven jokes more than screaming violence. Yet in a weird way, it’s those incredibly human flaws that make New Tales endearing in spite of itself.It’s a story adventure spin-off which balances Borderlands’ urge to be impressed with itself for using swears with some great new characters and a tinge of sincerity. It’s an inherently flawed journey, one I can understand not everyone taking to. I can’t say for certain if it was ambitions outstretching resources or late-game rewrites, but somewhere along the line Gearbox clearly made sizable structural changes too late into production to iron them out. I’m not even sure you can properly score New Tales given how inconsistent everything is (though our James Dean certainly tried in his review). You can see a brilliant adventure game buried here. Anu’s inner growth sequence addresses themes of empathy with far greater complexity than you’d expect in a game where a man has to hold himself hostage to break out of the silliest prison ever. The comedy can be outstanding too, such as a paranoid fighting game fan who serves as a recurring gag, and a sequence where everyone shooting each other is somehow one of the most lighthearted moments in the entire game. Yet for all of this, there are also wonderfully meta moments, like a turn-based JRPG homage, or a knowing parody of the simplicity of Telltale puzzles so that the player doesn't ever have to think too hard about their situation. These are akin to being handed a baby's raddle instead of an action figure with kung-fu grip. I get that failstates are rare in this style of adventure game, but at least well choreographed QTEs felt satisfying to pull off. This isn’t ideal given there are fewer puzzles and action set-pieces than usual in their place are minigames that are so hard to lose that you’d have to be actively trying to fail. Even core mechanics like Octavio’s fancy wrist-computer scanning people or your party’s morale meter can vanish for whole chapters at a time. The main impetus for Anu getting fired at the start of the game happens off-screen, yet there’s enough of an animation at the start of Episode One to suggest it might’ve been playable at one point. It’s heavily suggested Anu and another character could’ve had a romantic interest, only for that character to vanish for most of the season only to randomly appear in the final episode.ĪLSO READ: XIII Remake's Remake Is 'The Room' Of Videogames A teleporting robot is mostly used for plot conveniences instead of some major payoff like Loaderbot had in the first Tales. There’s an incredible rivalry between Octavio and a sentient gun named Brock, but it can only end one way, no matter your decisions. The flaws in the structure become more obvious the closer you examine various subplots. Yet if you go for the alternative path with the best outcome, you have to endure one of the worst choreographed fights in the history of adventure games. There's a certain sacrifice you can make late in the game which may well be the first instance of a true boss fight in a Telltale game, and a damn great one at that, but it also results in one of the worst endings afterward. There are great, terrible, and ‘just alright’ stories in gaming, but rarely do you have something so inconsistent.įran’s constant flirting with Octavio may feel completely out of place, but Fran’s arc of overcoming her anger to find a healthy acceptance of her past mistakes is wonderfully written. It’s incredibly common among casual storytelling between friends, but rare to see in such a high-budget game. Your party doesn’t follow the narrative you planned, their characters keep changing as the players get to grips with them, and you have to start cutting corners to keep any sort of pacing. ![]() New Tales falls into the familiar struggles many a tabletop RPG dungeon master has gone through when a plot goes off the rails. ALSO READ: Deus Ex: Mankind Divided's Ending Works, Actually
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