The Walking Dead: Season Two is still honestly one of my favorite video game sequels of all time. The first game was so spectacular that a follow up would be no easy task and depending on who you ask they’ll say it did or didn’t deliver, but I firmly believe it always has. It may not be quite as consistent as its predecessor, but in terms of how to craft a sequel I feel it’s often nothing short of genius…when it works.

Of all the sequels in the series, Season Two feels it most closely aligns with the foundation the first game set up. The narrative very clearly piggybacks off of the lessons and themes of its predecessor and challenges them in ways that recontextualize how you have to adapt to a continuously decaying world. Its ideas mirror the first game in ways that feel thought provoking instead of cheap. It’s used to provide alternative perspectives to some similar scenarios and gets you to realize that the same logic isn’t always going to work for different people, and especially when you are a different person. It shows that there’s more than one side to a coin. Season One and Season Two always felt like two sides of the same coin and I mean that in the best way possible. While they function effectively as individual games, I find that together they become twice as strong once you realize just how intertwined their themes are even in places you might not have expected. It may not always capture the same magic, but its own magic based on why the story resonated with people makes it feel like a worthy follow up.

…that’s all my opinion of course, but I feel that in concept this is pretty much the perfect sequel and it’s execution largely does those ideas justice. The execution is where things get divisive which yeah, I 100% agree that Season Two is far less consistent than the first even if I find these low points to be few and far between. The tension always feels incredibly high. No matter how many times I’ve replayed this game, I find it’s moments to be so effective that it feels like I’m experiencing the game for the first time all over again. I will say I can definitely understand why people would find this to be underwhelming. It’s probably one of the biggest games where I totally see why people may feel negatively towards certain things with its very different approach to pacing and characters compared to the first which became so beloved for those reasons. But for me? Man, I just love it. I absolutely love it. Even if it’s not better than the first overall, the many moments that I felt were on par and even surpassed the first make it my favorite in the series.

I remember this game as being sadder, bleaker and more boring than the first.

The gameplay is also just as non-existent as the first game, you could watch a YouTube playthrough and it'd be the same experience.

I didn't continue with the series after this one, I feel like Lee and Clem's relationship was the high point of the series.

There are aspects of this game that I like and some that I don't. This game's major flaw is that the cast of characters just feel like weaker versions of the season 1 characters and the few interesting characters, like Pete and carver get killed of in the same episode where they are properly introduced. There were many time I was just hating the characters because they were all just so useless. I felt like characters like Sarah, Carlos and Nick just served no purpose and I honestly forgot about them when they died. And the fact the group rely on Clementine all the time is pretty sad. However what I enjoyed in this season is the over all "goal" of the game (going to wellington) and overall sense of bleakness. I loved how bitter Kenny became in this season and as a player I really sympathise with him seeing how cruel the apocalypse was to him in season 1 for the same thing to happen to happen to him again this season. I also love the way he acts without Lee here to help him through the hardships he is going through and with the group basically being against him by the time episode 5 happens you can clearly see how AJ and Clementine is really his last hope. The scenes in episode 5 where clementine cleans his eye and him leaving on his own are genuinely sweet moments. It's a shame that Jane is just such a boring character because the final choice between Jane and Kenny could of been such a good dilemma with the player but the fact the she doesn't even tell Clementine that AJ is alive makes the player more inclined to side with Kenny (even if they hate him) due to the fact they believe that Jane killed a child.