The Walking Dead: A New Frontier - Episode 5 - From the Gallows Reviews
After all that’s said and done, Telltale delivered a game that has a nice story but not compelling enough to be part of the mainstream season. Sure it was a game that had lots of surprises and twists but at the end of the day it was not the game I was really hoping for. I still have high hopes for next season and hopefully we get a season that we finally deserve.
This new season has had a bumpy ride, launching off from a promising start, but stuttering along the way. Despite all its issues, though, a great story has been told. It's just not within a great game. The technical issues have too huge an impact to ignore. There is even less actual playable game time than normal for a Telltale title, and even this finale ends up feeling a little disappointing. From the beginning, this felt like it would be Javi's complete story, and anything that came after would be around Clem again, but instead of wrapping up loose threads and delivering a complete start-to-end story, it feels like it's setting up a second season for Javi. There's far too much of this in today's media; writing with the sequel in mind instead of just telling a complete story.
A New Frontier rebounds in its final episode, but it can't stop the fact that the series has delivered its weakest season to date.
The last episode in almost every Telltale Game winds up being the best in the series, but The Walking Dead: The Telltale Series - A New Frontier Episode 5: From The Gallows continues the trends we saw throughout the entire New Frontier series. For better or worse, this was a very consistent five episode arc that had very few highs or lows, and simply delivered a good but not great tale in the Walking Dead universe.
From the Gallows isn't the best finale Telltale has ever cooked up, but it presents enough tough choices to keep you engaged. Plus, it definitely alludes to more series to come from Telltale, which is never a bad thing.
An engaging yet flawed chapter satisfyingly closes off the season and sets the stage for Clementine's next adventure.
A good season finale with lots of emotional scenes and different endings. Still, the epilogue makes you wonder if this was an interim season, and what is the real role of Clementine, for a narrative not so clear.
Review in Italian | Read full review
The season ends with some intriguing and satisfying developments, but just like the rest of the season, it doesn't maintain an even quality throughout
Between ups and downs, we arrive at the end of the third season of The Walking Dead: A New Frontier. 'From the gallows' is an episode that provides constant fear for the life of each character, which will be put in critical situations. The Garc'a family has a closure in their journey; however, the game ends with a loose end that will upset some players. It's obvious the story will continue, either by an epilogue DLC or as a beginning to a fourth season.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
A New Frontier doesn't just refer to a part in the story - it works just as well as a metaphor to what the season eventually settles into. Coming into these five episodes, it was hard to imagine that it could live up to the quality that the first two seasons dished out, but it ends up as something far more ambitious and special than anyone would have imagined.
Compared to the earlier entries, The Walking Dead: A New Frontier wasn't the best season. There were more than enough characters who were unsympathetic, and some of the recycled plot devices didn't do anything to wipe away that sense of déjà vu. The final episode, From the Gallows, brought a satisfying emotional resolution to earlier actions and events, and the end report listing the overall relationship outcomes between Javi and all of the major characters made you feel like there was actually some agency in a Telltale title, even if that doesn't really occur. Though uneven, this turned out to be a good season if you were willing to stick with it.
The Walking Dead: A New Frontier's final episode rushes through its final moments at breakneck speed, forcing me to choose quick or be left behind. It succeeds in using this momentum to carry it through the best scenes in the season, even if a few get forgotten about in the process.
By the time the credits rolled on A New Frontier's finale, I was satisfied with the way my Javi had evolved. The outcomes of the decisions I made (regardless of how extreme they were) felt natural and progressive, and the consequences of seemingly insignificant conversations felt meaningful.
A New Frontier could have been the beginning of the end for Telltale's The Walking Dead. Risks were taken but they paid off brilliantly. Players will still be chasing the summit reached by the first season's teary final moments, but this episode closes a season-long arc that is Telltale's most thematically satisfying and emotionally resonant to date. It's a tale of family, responsibility, atonement, and inevitably, loss. It captures what this whole season stood for and breathes new life into the series.
There aren't any puzzles, or notable action scenes.
The final episode of The Walking Dead: A New Frontier brings the season home with plenty of action, sacrifices, and difficult decisions for Javier to make.
As far as finales go, From the Gallows is pretty good. There are some great interactions between the brothers, only let down by the treatment of one of the character's deaths.
This fifth chapter is the best one of a very irregular season that does not achieve to give as good vibrations as the previous ones.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
“From the Gallows” makes good on the gamble of season 3 in shifting focus to a new main character and making me care about Javi as much as I cared for Lee and Clem back in season 1. The fifth episode encompasses both what worked and didn't about A New Frontier — namely, the ideas of allegiance, love, and family for the former and erratic pacing and an inability to make the overarching story of much interest in the latter. But the season finale spends much more time on those successful aspects, capping A New Frontier in satisfying fashion while setting up a potentially exciting continuation down the road.
This was definitely the ending I had expected for A New Frontier as it closed off this third season well and gave us a good look at what was going to happen with the characters.