By Luke Kirby
Before I go into any detail about All That Remains… you have played Season 1 right? You haven’t? Go play it so you can be pulled into a series that leaves you feeling oh so many emotions and questions your moral judgement.
You finished it? Good. Did you also let out a tear or two at the end like I did? Don’t worry I won’t tell anyone, in fact I’d find it disturbing if you didn’t feel something and if you didn’t you’re a damn psychopath my friend.
Before I go into any detail about All That Remains… you have played Season 1 right? You haven’t? Go play it so you can be pulled into a series that leaves you feeling oh so many emotions and questions your moral judgement.
You finished it? Good. Did you also let out a tear or two at the end like I did? Don’t worry I won’t tell anyone, in fact I’d find it disturbing if you didn’t feel something and if you didn’t you’re a damn psychopath my friend.
All That Remains tells the story of how you, playing as Clementine, do your best to survive in a savage world inhabited by the undead and people who have lost their humanity. It also centres on the transformation of Clementine from an innocent girl unable to defend herself from the horrors of the world she exists in.
Honestly, I'm not as tasty as my name suggests
What is made abundantly clear, this is not the same character. Her innocence is lost, as a result of losing everything and everyone she cared for; she has become a hardened competent survivor. From the very start the developers have no trouble toying with your emotions, reminding you that in this world life is something that can be snuffed out as easily as one would blow out a candle. I don’t think I can think of any game that causes me to shout “No!” or “Why?” or just simply me being speechless in disbelief at the decisions I have to make and how it plays out.
Clementine finds herself coming across a new, untrusting group that find her by herself in the wilderness. The group has a mixture of characters that all seem to represent certain roles, for example we have Luke with whom Clementine can confide in developing some bond but the most interesting potential character is another young girl who is oblivious to what is happening in the world outside her bedroom. Of course there’s always a character that seems to be there to hate and I’m sure you’ll pick up on who this is while playing.
This first episode has produced scenarios, decisions just as distressing as any from the previous Season.
The violence and gore is just brutal at some sections, whether it is the gut wrenching feeling of a mercy killing or an all too detailed visualisation of seeing a child screaming because of a bleeding wound. While at times some of the things presented seem excessive I feel they’re necessary in order to portray Clementine as this strong character who is able to adapt to scenarios and do what needs to be done.
As a character that has changed from an innocent girl to a strong capable character it felt like, despite my character still being a young girl, choosing certain dialogues where Clementine comes off
as a character needed to be taken seriously was important. This led me to sometimes being straight to the point with some individuals in the game and to a degree threatening them which, I must admit, was rather satisfying. However that doesn’t mean that you can’t play to the advantage of being a small girl, as one option for dialogue is “Sad eyes”… which I pretty much instantly chose because I was interested to see how effective emotional manipulation would be.
One feature which I thought would be interesting is that your decisions made from Season 1 carry over and have an effect on Season 2. Personally I didn’t notice how any of my decisions from Season 1 had any effect on Season 2, maybe some dialogue changes if there were any but nothing noticeable. I’m hoping that as Season 2 progresses they incorporate this feature in a more apparent way.
You’ll notice I haven’t talked about gameplay really but that’s because it’s essentially the same mechanics as any other Telltale game, and let’s face it you play this game for the story.
I’m eager for more episodes to be released so I can continue Clementine’s story to see how it unfolds and to see how my decisions will affect her story. This is a game that pushes somewhat provocative themes and simply put, I like it. Most games seem to grow stale and it’s ever so rare that I feel something for characters as I’m never really given a reason to care for them but in this instance I do. Telltale have done a great job of bringing me back into this world and transforming my perception of Clementine, so I’m very excited to see what else she has in store for her.
The violence and gore is just brutal at some sections, whether it is the gut wrenching feeling of a mercy killing or an all too detailed visualisation of seeing a child screaming because of a bleeding wound. While at times some of the things presented seem excessive I feel they’re necessary in order to portray Clementine as this strong character who is able to adapt to scenarios and do what needs to be done.
As a character that has changed from an innocent girl to a strong capable character it felt like, despite my character still being a young girl, choosing certain dialogues where Clementine comes off
as a character needed to be taken seriously was important. This led me to sometimes being straight to the point with some individuals in the game and to a degree threatening them which, I must admit, was rather satisfying. However that doesn’t mean that you can’t play to the advantage of being a small girl, as one option for dialogue is “Sad eyes”… which I pretty much instantly chose because I was interested to see how effective emotional manipulation would be.
One feature which I thought would be interesting is that your decisions made from Season 1 carry over and have an effect on Season 2. Personally I didn’t notice how any of my decisions from Season 1 had any effect on Season 2, maybe some dialogue changes if there were any but nothing noticeable. I’m hoping that as Season 2 progresses they incorporate this feature in a more apparent way.
You’ll notice I haven’t talked about gameplay really but that’s because it’s essentially the same mechanics as any other Telltale game, and let’s face it you play this game for the story.
I’m eager for more episodes to be released so I can continue Clementine’s story to see how it unfolds and to see how my decisions will affect her story. This is a game that pushes somewhat provocative themes and simply put, I like it. Most games seem to grow stale and it’s ever so rare that I feel something for characters as I’m never really given a reason to care for them but in this instance I do. Telltale have done a great job of bringing me back into this world and transforming my perception of Clementine, so I’m very excited to see what else she has in store for her.
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