This is a tough one for me to grade.
Even back when I was head-over-feels for Telltale's TWD, I wasn't that big of a fan of this and only replayed it a handful of times to 100% its trophies.
400 Days is what most associate downloadable content with: it's concise and doesn't do many new things. It simply takes what's there and tries to build off of it. Here's the problem with that, though: that's something that works in a more gameplay-centric title. Replaying the same level in a shooter might be a little repetitive, but there's still room for me to challenge myself and try new things out. You can't exactly do that with an Adventure game. You talk to the correct characters at the right times, solve the right puzzles, and then you're done.
None of that means that 400 Days never had the opportunity to be great. While your choices don't exactly matter in the base game, a shorter experience with more diverse chapters was a perfect opportunity for them to bake more impactful choices into the overall narrative. Add to that the fact that this is basically a collection of interactive short stories, and it's a real shocker that the player barely has any input in this. There's a lot of potential for gold here, but they dug silver up instead. I can settle for silver, though. It's a little disappointing, but I'll live.
Even back when I was head-over-feels for Telltale's TWD, I wasn't that big of a fan of this and only replayed it a handful of times to 100% its trophies.
400 Days is what most associate downloadable content with: it's concise and doesn't do many new things. It simply takes what's there and tries to build off of it. Here's the problem with that, though: that's something that works in a more gameplay-centric title. Replaying the same level in a shooter might be a little repetitive, but there's still room for me to challenge myself and try new things out. You can't exactly do that with an Adventure game. You talk to the correct characters at the right times, solve the right puzzles, and then you're done.
None of that means that 400 Days never had the opportunity to be great. While your choices don't exactly matter in the base game, a shorter experience with more diverse chapters was a perfect opportunity for them to bake more impactful choices into the overall narrative. Add to that the fact that this is basically a collection of interactive short stories, and it's a real shocker that the player barely has any input in this. There's a lot of potential for gold here, but they dug silver up instead. I can settle for silver, though. It's a little disappointing, but I'll live.