The Wolf Among Us Episode 5 Review - Hang on to That Cliff

[Sanunes]

I'll agree it's less of a cliffhanger and more of a "to be continued" but I would have rather had more resolution.

I can understand that, now my first time through the ending I felt that I did get more of a resolution when I picked this ending.

Spoiler

"Let her go."

For it felt like Bigby decided that enough had happened and decided to let the case rest.

I went back after reading your review and picked the other ending and that one definitely felt like it had less resolution then the other. Of course personal perception applies.

 

[Alpha Maeko]

Snow White is one of Dr. Who's companions and Bibgy was dead the whole time and Toad is Colin's father and Bluebeard kills Beauty.

I think I covered all the spoilers.

Anyway, that ending... what the frell!? What does it meeeeaaaan D:

 

[Bayushi_Kouya]

Snow White is one of Dr. Who's companions and Bibgy was dead the whole time and Toad is Colin's father and Bluebeard kills Beauty.

I think I covered all the spoilers.

Anyway, that ending... what the frell!? What does it meeeeaaaan D:

Let me ask you this: where is the Crooked Man's money?

Need help?

Spoiler

Nerissa's duffle bag.

The whole plot, ground up, was hers. She wanted the money and out of her current situation. All she needed to do was kill everyone in the Crooked 6 or convince them to GTFO of town. She convinced Lily to do something stupid, then led Bigby around by his black, wet nose through dismantling the Crooked Man's organization. All she had to do is play the part of the victim and he (and the player) wouldn't think twice about her and her motives. She plays on assumptions, and she does so very well.

That's the reason why I love this game so much. In Bigby's shoes, I'd've been just as suckered. She is a stone cold *****, a fantastic liar, and my favorite villain I can remember in recent memory. It gives me a brief moment of sympathy for the Crooked Man when he's trying to tap-dance his way out of the courtroom scene -- he really has no idea how this all blew up, until Nerissa walks in the room and condemns him without letting her victim mask slip. No one likes being defeated, but I cannot imagine the bottom falling out of the Crooked Man's heart when he put it all together.

SO GOOD. Mm-mmm. Daddy wants more.

 

[Miroluck]

snip

The Toad situation was a bit of a cop-out though, since I gave him the money. What's especially problematic about it is that Toad gets sent to the Farm no matter what, while making the same decision for Colin seems to stick, even though you only gave him vague reassurances. I haven't read the comics though, so I have no idea what the Farm's like or what goes on there.

snip

Yeah, Toad's "fork" is actually a stick, it seems. Also, isn't

Spoiler

Colin going to the Farm

canon? Because if so, Toad's fate is even bigger disappointment than I've thought.

 

[hermes]

Well I would have loved to finish this game. But for some fucking reason the game decided to change my choices. The game claimed I did a certain something to a witch in dire straits, which I did not. After that I turned my PS3 off. Seriously, that just killed my entire excitement for the ending.

I had the same issue on my PS3. When the flashback started, I noticed there were some important differences with the decisions I have made; including the witch situation and being an asshole to a certain porcine character.

It didn't killed my mood, but it sure lessened my appreciation for the series, especially when so many decisions play a role in the chapter.

 

[Callate]

I really enjoyed the series, but some things seem like they were more than a little forced in order to make things seem gray. Beast? You attacked me without provocation, and I did as little as was possible to restrain you; what's this "he's a violent monster" bullshit?

Yes, my Bigby killed people- people who were multiple murderers, who shot at him, who were participants in a ring of slavery and prostitution. He's also done everything in his power to protect the innocent, sympathize with the grieving, and minimize the damage left in his wake. Left without the ability to flat-out say this, as a player I was left to resort to lying at times because there were no options that made me feel my accusers would understand, and that's frustrating.

I understand the desire in a story-driven game not to give players a single "optimal path", to make them accept hard decisions and face the consequences. But like the earlier "Do everything right and still fail" QTEs, sometimes it just leaves the player feeling set up to lose.

 

[Saetha]

I really liked this episode, actually. The courtroom, the Bloody Mary fight, all of it was pretty cool. I think it was kinda weird how there was little-to-no banter in the first scene, though... but after that everything was great.

Not being able to bring up the slavery thing was weird... Especially since Johann was right there and could've confirmed it.

The lack of choice with Toad is weird, too... but since I didn't give him money and told him to get lost, that was pretty much the expected outcome for me. So that didn't really bother me, either...

Well I would have loved to finish this game. But for some fucking reason the game decided to change my choices. The game claimed I did a certain something to a witch in dire straits, which I did not. After that I turned my PS3 off. Seriously, that just killed my entire excitement for the ending.

I had the same issue on my PS3. When the flashback started, I noticed there were some important differences with the decisions I have made; including the witch situation and being an asshole to a certain porcine character.

It didn't killed my mood, but it sure lessened my appreciation for the series, especially when so many decisions play a role in the chapter.

Sounds like a glitch with the PS3 version. I played on the 360 and everything went fine for me. Judging from the responses n this thread, it did for anyone playing on the computer, too.

 

[StriderShinryu]

Probably due to the fact that I let her go (at that point my Bigby had had enough and just wanted a cigarette and a sleep), but I didn't feel it was too much of a cliff hanger at all. There definitely are a bunch of things that lead into the potential next season (s) but I found the season to overall be largely self contained. There's seeds of where they can (and will eventually have to) go in the future but if they don't pick up on the exact ending of Season 1 until a couple more seasons in I don't think it would feel too out of place at all.

 

[Sylph_14]

I enjoyed it for sure But I got the game on a Steam sale and only started it last night, played through all 5 episodes straight, so I didn't have any time to really build up excitement or anticipation

I was yelling at my screen for the Butcher to pipe up and say something about the blood and shackles though >_>

 

[BrotherRool]

I'm 80% sure I know the answer to which way round it is with Nerissa

If you ask the Mirror about Faith

Spoiler

after she's supposedly dead it says 'My Lips are sealed'. But if she were dead it should just show the body. This is why she was keeping her ribbon on at the end of the game and didn't want Bigby to touch it, because it was disguising her from the Mirror.

Most of the quotes he heard said at the end of the game match up with it being Faith disguised as Nerissa. For example he remembered how the body of 'Faith' never came back to be examined, presumably because she disposed of it.

I still didn't really find the cliffhanger much of a cliffhanger, or even a 'to be continued.' They did something to get herself out of a bad situation and to allow them to walk away and at the end of the game Bigby realises what that is. It's not a sequel hook, there was no big conspiracy. There's nothing there to construct a whole plot out of in the next game. He realised there was a character who'd been hiding something from him the whole story long. It changes there relationship but nothing else.

Also, I don't know if anyone found it, but I found a "Game Over" screen. I've never seen a game over in the entire time playing it until that point (and I've failed a few QTE because...yanno...keyboards aren't meant for mashing). Perhaps because of the situation at hand over-riding how hard Bigby is to kill, but I kind of laughed lol. In fact, it just said "Game Over" on the background of the menu screen (unlike the splattery screen of Walking Dead) like they had to install it as a technicality. No alternate story either. Not a criticism, but just my funny little "Hey, I found the Game Over screen ". Shame I had to redo the entire scene though.

And not sure if this happened to others, but it seemed like Telltale's choice table derped again. I'm playing my Steam copy and I didn't get any showing of my choices. Not the first time it happened, but I've played these games day of release and still had them work.

I hope this isn't too annoying because of how late I'm quoting you. But I found lots of Game Over screens throughout the game. I think most fights had one. There were lots of situations where I was trying not to give into Brutality and stop fighting when the other guy was down and most of those turned into a game over if you did stop.

 

[Raggedstar]

I hope this isn't too annoying because of how late I'm quoting you. But I found lots of Game Over screens throughout the game. I think most fights had one. There were lots of situations where I was trying not to give into Brutality and stop fighting when the other guy was down and most of those turned into a game over if you did stop.

Nah, it's fine. Actually, a few days ago I watched a video where they were discussing the game and in the first fight of the first episode he had a game over. Definitely an "ah crap" moment on my part, so my bad. I only had one despite missing a few prompts (generally I made Bigby be as brutal as possible, so I only purposefully missed them twice, and the first time there was no punishment). The two other LPs I watched also never had one despite missing prompts, so I thought the immortality was just part of the canon that Fables are hard to kill. Ah well.