The Walking Dead: The Final Season Episode 1 Done Running Xbox One X Review

Since its debut, Telltale's The Walking Dead has captivated audiences with its incredible writing, consequential system, and complicated characters. The Walking Dead: The Final Season opens strong by providing a new set of characters and focusing on setting up a premise instead of providing polarizing choices. After a shocking finale Done Running has started off Clementine's final adventure with something that will delight newcomers and shock veterans.

Done Running starts off simple enough, giving the player the chance to decide a few short decisions in the past seasons before hopping into the present. Clementine has taken up the role as mother and guardian for Alevin Junior and is seeking food and shelter. Unlike Clementine and Lee's relationship A.J. is unaware of the world before the walkers took over and learn primarily through Clementine. What to do, how to survive, and significant rules are constantly being repeated as not to forget.

It's clear that Telltale has learned from past games like Batman: The Enemy Within and the previous seasons of The Walking Dead to provide more branching paths of how characters can react. A.J. will mimic Clementine's behavior and lessons while others in your journey will provide diverse answers based on your overall relationship with them.

There is a lot of quality to life improvements for veterans as well. You no longer have to input commands for every little action and dialogue options are more streamlined, focusing on important choices instead of answering every little question. Graphically the game looks impressive with character models much more fleshed out and animated and the environments feeling more alive thanks to dust particles and the use of color.

What hasn't improved is the combat. While more active than previous games Walkers, for some strange reason, are much more nimble than Clementine who walks and turns like a statue. It definitely makes combat much harder but there's no reason Clementine should be so slow and sluggish given her ample combat and survival experience.

You will encounter a new group of survivors, this time a group of teenagers Clementine's age. Each one is distinct such as Violent being distant and having difficulty opening up, Marlon who leads the group attempting to be the leader everyone wants him to be, and Louis a musician with an upbeat attitude. Other characters mostly blend into the background but are presented to the player as to be aware of their existence, however, it's clear who are the stars of this episode are.

What Done Running lacks are critical choices. You can alter your relationship with people by making poor decisions but for the most part, no one is going to die over saying the wrong thing. A lot of effort was put into establishing the new setting, characters, and the impending conflict that will lead to the next episode. Overall, Telltale did a great job setting up this season.

A major issue is that you cannot replay certain parts of the episode. In other Telltale adventures this was possible, why it isn't here is problematic. If you want to alter a specific choice you'll have to play the entire episode.

The Walking Dead: The Final Season Episode 1 Done Running is a fantastic opening to Clementine's final adventure. The combat is one of the more annoying aspects but the dialogue and setting immediately provide the player with enough information and conflict to get excited about the second episode. Done Running starts off strong and finishes with a conclusion that will have you craving the next episode. 

Adam Siddiqui, NoobFeed
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