This season kicks the game off in an amazing direction. In my opinion, Season 1 created the most memorable characters. You have the likes of Lee, Clementine, Kenny, and Lily, all of which contribute and make not only this season memorable, but Seasons 2-4 as well. I honestly didn’t know what to think of the game when I first started playing this season, but my entire perspective changed after Episode 5.

Oh my goodness, Episode 5 is easily in my top 3 best episodes of the entire game. The action sequence of Lee fighting his way through the walkers to get to Clementine in the hotel is totally badass and emotional, and shows how much he cares about her, despite what people have said to him and have concluded about him because of his past.

Don’t even get me started on the ending. Put yourself into Lee’s shoes for a second. The entire season, you took complete care of Clementine, providing her with everything she needed to survive. But, it’s different now. This time, you’re stuck in the back of some store, on the floor, helpless, trying your best to guide an 8 year old girl out of that store, where she then must survive on her own (until she hopefully finds Omid and Christia, however he has no idea if that will actually happen), and there is absolutely nothing you can do to change this situation. When the game got to the difficult choice of Lee telling Clementine to kill him or let him turn, was when I really started to feel the emotion set in.

Despite all the amazing things this season does, in my opinion it does have one flaw. I felt like it introduced a lot of characters that you never really got to know. They would be introduced and then later get killed off in the same episode, or would never have enough dialog. This didn’t happen for the significant characters, but for those that it did happen to, I was never really sad or upset that they died. I mean, I couldn’t be. I never got to know them well enough to actually build an attachment to them. Besides this minor flaw however, Season 1 was absolutely amazing, and one of the best pieces of storytelling in a game.

Note: I believe the 400 Days DLC is intended to be played between finishing Season 1 and starting Season 2. I did not play it in that order, I played it about a week after finishing Season 4. I did this by mistake, accidentally skipping it and going straight to Season 2, but honestly it really didn't matter and I'll explain why later in this review.

400 Days has you going through the stories of 5 characters that would later join Carver's group in Season 2. Each story is short, around 30 minutes, totally about 2 hours. 400 Days was the only time I ever felt myself being a little "bored" while playing an episode in this series. It might have been the fact I had finished the whole game and this DLC didn't really matter at that point, or the fact that I knew all of the characters besides Bonnie had little to no impact, but whatever it was, this was probably my least favorite "episode" in the whole series.

To my knowledge, 400 Days was meant to help bridge the gap between seasons 1 and 2, introducing and adding background to five characters in Carver's group that you would later meet and interact with. The problem is, all of the characters besides Bonnie had absolute no role besides maybe one or two scenes in Season 2. I honestly didn't recognize some of the characters during my initial play through, that's how little impact they had. It was honestly a little disappointing.

I believe the reason for this though is Telltale had written and developed 400 Days before fully completing Season 2's story. If you have any background on Season 2's development, you'll know that the story went through multiple massive changes and rewrites. So, maybe these characters had more impact on the season at one point? I guess we'll never fully know.

After the end of Season 1, I had no idea the direction this game was going to take. I was hoping Season 2 would be a continuation of Season 1’s story, but the only character that survived was Clementine, and I felt like it would be odd playing as a 8 year-old.

Luckily, we don’t have to play as an 8 year-old, we play as an 11 year-old. I’m glad they took this approach, rather than having us play as another character in the same universe in a different situation (cough, Season 3). Still, a bit weird that the entire time the game is having the child doing most of the work, but I can’t complain too much.

Oh, there was one more character that survived, Kenny!! Kenny single handedly took this season from a 6-7/10, to an easy 8-9/10. The shock I felt when we walked up to that cabin and Kenny was there to greet us was unimaginable.

But besides Clementine, Kenny, Jane, and Luke, this season really had no extremely memorable characters. I mean, yeah there was the main group, but a lot of them were either just not that interesting, or borderline annoying. The story was also a lot less cohesive and interesting than Season 1’s. For example, Clementine got caught up in a bunch of her group’s past drama, which was never relevant to her in any way until she joined their group. There’s also this whole debate between Kenny and Jane about visiting a city, which ends up amounting to absolutely nothing in the story.

So, is it as good as Season 1? Definitely not, but did I enjoy playing it? Most definitely.

This was by far the worst season. It consists of exactly what I hoped wouldn’t happen in Season 2, and the fact that the entire main cast of characters, besides Clementine and Jesus, are so uninteresting that I barely remember their names. Additionally, the entire story besides a few key points contribute absolutely nothing to Season 4. The only reason you'd want to play this season is for the few pieces of context, like Clementine joining the New Frontier, being relevant in Season 4.

I cannot emphasize how much I REALLY dislike the characters in this season. The only reason it ranks a 6 is because Clementine makes it sort of interesting. The whole Javier and Kate affair is weird, and the conversation Javier has with Clementine about her period is uncomfortable. Like, I understand that you want to show that despite everything she’s gone through, she still experiences the things that come with growing up, but man I play this game to have fun, not to listen to an uncomfortable conversation between a grown man whom she barely knows, and a 13-year-old, about her period.

The only part of this season that actually contributes to Season 4 is the fact that Clementine joined the New Frontier. Everything else, nope doesn’t matter.

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Edit: I'm writing this after watching @InColdBloodTTG's series on the various pieces of cut content from these games. I highly recommend checking them out if you haven't already, one is linked below. They give some additional context relating to the choices Telltale made in terms of story, as well as some insight on the development process. Anyways, A New Frontier had a ton of cut content, a lot of which would have probably made this season a lot more interesting. The most significant of which was an additional 5th Clementine flashback that was likely going to occur during the 5th episode. It consists of Clementine and her babysitter, Sandra, at her house in Georgia, on day 1 of the pandemic. In this flashback, we would have seen Sandra getting attacked by a walker, and Clementine likely making a narrow escape. At the end of the flashback, we would have seen the moment Lee crashed and then later entered Clementine's house at the beginning of Season 1, though this time from Clementine's perspective. It obviously would have been a lot more detailed than this, and I highly recommend checking out the full video (linked below) for more, but man would this have made this season a lot more impactful. Would it have saved it? Probably not, but I most likely would have enjoyed it, specifically that last episode, a lot more.

Oh my goodness, WHAT A SEASON! THIS! This single handedly makes this game the best story game I have ever played. Honestly, it makes it the best GAME I have ever played. I’m writing this the night of finishing this game. I did my best to spread out the episodes, so as to not waste playing it all in one night, but still excuse some recency bias. However, even if I took a month break between finishing the game and writing this, I think my thoughts would still be the same.

In Season 4, we get to play as Clementine once again, however this time she’s finally at an age where it doesn’t feel weird that she’s doing most of the heavy lifting (16-17 yrs old). The cast of characters starts out to be not too interesting, and as my friend pointed out, “it felt like it was going to become a teen drama show”. However, I am happy to say that didn’t happen :) The characters become WAY more memorable as the season progresses, and AJ ends up being one of my favorites of the game.

There's a lot of "character development" scenes that happen in this season. I absolutely love these. Seeing the characters we've either played as or with for hours participating in a "normal" activity is really comforting and there's something really special about it. Additionally, if you confess your feelings to Louis, the date scene between them both is one of the cutest things ever. It's sad to think that a lot of the non-gameplay scenes were inevitably cut from the game, all because Telltale Management thought they were boring...

Okay, I’m just going to skip the majority of episode 1 and 2's plot, not because it was bad, it was quite the opposite actually, but only because episodes 3 and 4 are just THAT GOOD. I want to waste no time not talking about them.

Clementine takes charge using the knowledge she gained from the New Frontier (the only piece of information we gain from Season 3) to help her friends defend their school from the impending raiders. Because Clementine is fully in charge of this operation, this puts a lot of stress on her, which results in the greatest scene in Video Game history.

A “flashback” to Clementine on a train with Lee, the same train where she had originally been taught to shoot a gun and keep her hair cut short. Flashbacks like this happened multiple times throughout Season 3 and 4, so what makes this one different? This is the first “flashback” where we get new dialog, dialog that is relevant to Season 4. So, wait, that doesn’t make this a flashback. Instead, this is something made up in Clementine’s mind, a way to cope with the stress. We know this for sure because of two lines, which I firmly believe to be the best two lines in the entire game.

Clementine: “I wish you were here right now Lee.”
Lee: “I wish I were too, but we'll have to make due with pretending.”

I cannot begin to explain the emotion I felt when I heard this. You won’t be able to understand why it's so significant unless you play the game yourself. Lee, despite the short time he was actually in Clementine’s life, was such a massive influence, that she dreams/visions herself going to him, seeking guidance or just wanting to talk. That line additionally confirms that none of what we were seeing in the flashback actually happened, and Clementine is fully aware of the fact it's all in her imagination. But despite this, it still gives her hope. This isn't a one-off either. In the scene, Lee mentions that she had also been scared before she was about retrieve AJ from the McCarroll Ranch, indicating that she most likely went to Lee for that as well. I could literally talk about this scene for hours, but we need to move on.

Anyways, the boat scene, absolutely amazing. The ending, however, is another story. By this point, I had noticed a clear connection between the relationship Lee and Clementine had, and the relationship Clementine and AJ have. Lee was willing to do anything for Clementine, even dying like we see at the end of Season 1. Clementine is the same way towards AJ, multiple characters even point it out, most significant being Lily. Lily even directly compares Clementine to Lee.

Lee was in charge of taking care of Clementine, while Clementine was in charge of taking care of AJ. Lee taught Clementine to shoot a gun, while Clementine taught AJ to shoot a gun. See, very similar?

I didn’t like how similar this was. Not because it was bad, it was amazing storytelling, but because I was afraid Clementine would end up just like Lee. Get bitten, become helpless, and eventually die leaving AJ to defend himself.

And to my surprise, that’s exactly what happened. The similarities of the two endings are CRAZY. But this time, it was different. I couldn’t live with Clementine dying. We had only known Lee for 5 episodes, but Clementine had appeared in every single episode of this game. Luckily for me, AJ thought the same and decided risk cutting off her leg, where the bite was located, and ended up saving Clementine. We don’t find out this is the case until minutes before the final ending of the game, and the suspense is outrageous. The anticipation pays off though. I remember being so happy that Clementine lived. While now being limited by her one leg, at least AJ and her would finally have a place they could call home.

I forgot to mention this earlier, but in between Clementine getting bit and the actual ending of the game, the conversation AJ and her had while they were walking back to the school was probably the most emotional I have ever been for a piece of media.

Clementine: “I love you goofball, never forget that.”

I could go on and on about how absolutely amazing this season is, but I think you get the point ;) Just go play it for yourself if you haven’t already.

It took me awhile to finally play Michonne's short story. I really didn't want the Telltale Walking Dead games to be over, which resulted in me taking a 78 day break in between finishing Season 4 and playing this.

I think I might be a bit biased against this "miniseries". The story is not at all related to the main game and is only about 3 & 1/2 hours long. This made it fairly difficult to get fully invested into.

So, what are my thoughts? Yeah, it's okay. If you really want some more Telltale Walking Dead content after finishing the game, I recommend it. Personally, I enjoyed playing it, but it was nothing revolutionary and I do not consider it a "must play". The story was mediocre and the only part I was ever interested in was what happened to Michonne's kids.

My biggest complaint is how obviously incomplete the story is. Turns out, just like most other Telltale games, Michonne's story was rewritten multiple times during development and was heavily rushed towards the end. All of this resulted in multiple plot points being mentioned, but never resolved. The biggest example of this was with Rishid and Vanessa. They both were referred to as Pete's friends, whom he often traded with. The two of them went missing, forcing Michonne and Pete to go looking for them. This later resulted in them coming across Randall and the rest is history. But what happened to Rishid and Vanessa? Well, we never know. They were never mentioned a single time after episode 1. One of the biggest plot points, which pretty much initiated this entire story, seemingly disappeared before it was fully resolved. I'm sure Telltale had plans at one point of incorporating them into the story, but unfortunately they never did.

Overall, it's not terrible. At least it's not pretending to be relevant to the main story like 400 days...