Amphibia: The Telltale Series

Amphibia: The Telltale Series (titled and marketed as Amphibia with The Telltale Series written in Amphibian text) is an episodic graphic adventure game based on the Disney Channel animated series of the same name. The game was developed by Avalanche Software, published by LCG Entertainment under Telltale Games, and distributed by Athlon Games. The game had 5 episodes released from November 2022 through April 2023. It received mixed to positive reviews by critics and audiences, and was nominated for an award.

Gameplay
The game follows the same episodic format, like the original Telltale's previous games. The game should also serve as a sequel to the original series. Players assume the role of now 23-year-old Anne Boonchuy who lives in Los Angeles as she later finds out about a new enemy threatening the multiverse. She later regroups with her old friends, known as Amphibians, to assist her. The game is a fantasy comedy made with quick time events, dialogue trees, solving puzzles, and moving around in a free environment where the player could interact with objects and other characters. The game also has the "crowd play" feature, where fans can choose choices. This feature was first introduced in Batman: The Telltale Series.

Series Synopses
"With King Andrias, the great ruler of Amphibia defeated, now 23-year-old fearless girl Anne Boonchuy has been acclaimed as the new hero of Amphibia. However, the adventure is not over just yet, as Anne discovers a ritual which says of a new enemy that could potentially destroy the multiverse. Together with her friend Sprig Plantar and others, they embark on a wild and crazy voyage across Amphibia and other worlds to stop the enemy from taking over."

-Disney TVA News

"The world of Amphibia and other universes have a fate worse than death, and your role as Anne Boonchuy will hold the balance between your friends and family. All you gotta do is hop into the adventure and ribbit, ribbit, jump on in it!"

-Telltale

Plot
10 years after the battle with the Core, Anne Boonchuy works as a herpetologist at the Aquarium of the Pacific. She is then notified of strange behavior from a certain device. Reuniting with her friends Sasha Waybright and Marcy Wu, they investigate within the mountains near Los Angeles. The strange behavior is originating from an entirely-new built Calamity Box, whom Anne thought was destroyed. She opens the box, which teleports the three back to Amphibia. Arriving back in Newtopia, Anne reunites with Sprig Plantar, both of whom are later interrupted by a swarm of lizards attempting to overtake Newtopia. Remembering her actions during her first visit, Anne successfully defeats the swarm.

A few minutes later, Sprig receives a message from an "old friend", telling him to meet up in the dangerous forest of Amphibia. He accepts it, and Anne also comes with him. When they arrive, a Frilled Lizard attacks them, and they defeat it. The "old friend" from earlier walks up behind the two, surprising them both. She introduces herself as "Rue", an eastern newt to Anne. She brings them both to her village, which has been destroyed by a "supernatural entity". Feeling pity about her, Anne tries to help Rue, but she denies it. But Sprig offers an invite to stay at the Plantars' farm, to which Rue accepts. When they get back to Wartwood, everyone welcomes Anne back to Amphibia.

At a meeting hosted by Sasha and Marcy, the group later locates an ancient artifact hidden deep within a temple located in the dangerous parts of Amphibia, which they will leave next morning. When they get there, they are attacked by Elijah Thompson, who thought they were enemies, though he would choose to team up with them. The temple is filled with different traps and other dangerous things, even one where they would have to split up. Near the end of the temple is the artifact named the "New World's Power". Before Anne tries to grab it, Rue unexpectedly grabs it before Anne, receiving the power from the artifact. Sprig is confused by this, and Rue reveals that it was a trick to get them into helping her rule the multiverse, something that King Andrias attempted to do. Rue then banishes Anne and Sprig to different dimensions.

TBA.

Voice cast

 * Brenda Song as Anne Boonchuy, the playable main protagonist of the game.
 * Justin Felbinger as Sprig Plantar, the deuteragonist and best friend of Anne.
 * Ashly Burch as Rue, the hidden main antagonist of the game and is Sprig's "friend". She also wants to complete King Andrias' goal: "take over the multiverse."
 * Bill Farmer as Hopediah "Hop Pop" Plantar.
 * Amanda Leighton as Polly Plantar.
 * Anna Akana as Sasha Waybright, one of Anne's best friends.
 * Haley Tju as Marcy Wu, another one of Anne's best friends.
 * Scott Porter as Elijah Thompson, an original character who teamed up with Anne.
 * JB Blanc as Sam, another original character who is an older friend of Leopold.
 * Nolan North as Tad, a frog, and part of the "ARG".
 * Adam Harrington as Dart, a newt and is also part of the "ARG".
 * Fred Tatasciore as Archimedes, a toad and is also part of the "ARG".
 * These characters appear in episodes 1, 2 & 5.
 * Brian Maillard as Leopold Loggle, a carver.
 * Zehra Fazal as General Yunan, a warrior of Newtopia.
 * Michelle Dockery as Lady Olivia.
 * Alex Hirsch as Curator Ponds, an antagonist of "Wax Museum".
 * Keith David as King Andrias, the king and a former main antagonist of Amphibia.
 * Troy Baker as Captain Grime.
 * TBD

In addition, Richard Epcar provides the voice role of the Narrator.

Episodes
The following episode synopses are from the episode selection screen.

Episode 1: Return to Amphibia
Anne Boonchuy settles into her new, peaceful life after the great battle with King Andrias, the ruler of Amphibia. But what she doesn’t know is that a new threat will take place between Earth and the entire multiverse itself.

Episode 2: New Discoveries
Back in the mysterious world of Amphibia once again, Anne recruits with her very own frog friend, Sprig. However, a very shocking discovery will be made in the central parts of Amphibia.

Episode 3: The Unknown Temple
With every known universe in trouble, the team discovers a hidden temple located deep within the dangerous parts of Amphibia. On the way, a mysterious relic can help the gang, but could it be enough to stop the enemy and save the multiverse?

Episode 4: Mystery Portal
Not only has the enemy revealed a very shocking truth, but the entire team will need to reunite with old allies before this enemy begins to get out of control. Time is running out as soon as they can find a true way to defeat the enemy.

Episode 5: Battle for the Multiverse
The final battle with Anne’s newest, strongest and greatest enemy will seal all worlds across the multiverse to an ultimately unknown, yet debatable fate for the entire population.

Development
Amphibia: The Telltale Series had begun development prior to the rescheduled airing of the season 2 finale of Amphibia, "True Colors". While writing a script for a video game, Telltale had approached Matt Braly, creator and executive producer of Amphibia, to offer a Telltale game based on one of his projects. Despite the fact he doubted of a Telltale game based on a Disney property, he still chose to accept the offer. One of the first projects by Telltale was Amphibia, with the best estimated release being sometime in late Fall 2022. The game is expected to use the Unreal Engine. However, unlike the previous Telltale development, all episodes will be developed at the same time rather than standalone development.

According to a developer, the team wanted to make the characters as 2D as they can, as it was the show's natural look. In some occasions, there are a couple of 3D characters, most of which aren't in the TV series.

Like Minecraft: Story Mode, the team chose to make Amphibia: The Telltale Series a family friendly title, though it is mostly aimed for older audiences. While being interviewed by IGN, Braly confirmed that it originally had a more dramatic story, and it would've received a more serious rating, like a T rating.

The voice cast of the TV show had reprised their roles in the game. Brenda Song confirmed that the game would have a much more serious impact on her character, Anne. Justin Felbinger also confirmed of new features that can't be seen on some of Telltale's games. New actors like Ashly Burch and Scott Porter were confirmed to be two of the voice actors for the game, though their roles weren't revealed at the time.

The game was first announced at San Diego Comic-Con 2021 as "Untitled Amphibia Game". The next year at SDCC 2022, the game was fully announced.

Release & Reception
During the reveal at SDCC 2022, the release date was revealed, in which the first episode would be released on November 22, 2022.

Reception
Amphibia: The Telltale Series was given mixed to positive reviews from critics and fans of the show, praising its voice acting, animation, action, and faithfulness to the TV series, but criticized the continuity of the storyline and the presence of many technical issues. The plot received mixed reviews as well, criticizing its similarity to the S3 plot, but praising its new elements.

Score & Soundtrack
The score of Amphibia: The Telltale Series, which has been composed by Antimo & Welles had been released on YouTube Music, Spotify and Apple Music in pairs, with the first part being released a day after Episode 1 had been released. This would go on for the rest of the parts.

A few original songs for the game were written by two artists.

Video Game Soundtrack

 * No Big Deal (S3 Remix) by Jakeneutron
 * Rather Be by Clean Bandit
 * Lean on Me by Bill Withers
 * Cosmic Creatures by Anadel
 * A Frog's Path by Antimo & Welles
 * In Circles by Antimo & Welles
 * A New Adventure by Matt Braly, Alex Hirsch, & Anadel

Possible sequel
Although Alex Hirsch had not confirmed of a sequel, he said he'd like to do another Telltale game aimed for general audiences, possibly based on Gravity Falls.

On January 5, 2023, Matt Braly had mentioned a possibility of a sequel to Amphibia: The Telltale Series. He said that if the game had a sequel, he said he'd like the game to be about robots and other AI, thus making him come up with the title "Amphibia: The AI Trouble".

Trivia

 * Anne uses her very own S3 outfit for the events of this game. Although the outfit is identical, the only difference is that there is a blue vest over her shirt.
 * Mr. and Mrs. Boonchuy themselves appear in the game as minor characters.
 * Anne is also the second playable character in all of Telltale's games to have parents, the first being Peter Quill in Guardians of the Galaxy: The Telltale Series.
 * However, that was a flashback. If the flashbacks do not count, Anne is the first playable character to have parents.
 * Matt Braly had confirmed of many new original characters such as Rue, Sam, Chernobog, Lilitu and Elijah at the time of its first reveal.
 * Since the game is similar to the 2015-2017 video game Minecraft: Story Mode, another game made by Telltale:
 * There are many references to characters from that game.
 * Mild depictions of violence were shown.
 * This is the second game from Telltale to be rated E10+ and PEGI 7.
 * The "Your story is changing." popup may appear when a major choice has changed a player's story.
 * TBD
 * Some mild language like "heck" could be heard throughout the game, but not real swear words like "damn" or "hell".
 * Like in the TV series, the word "frog" is used in many explicit sentences as censors.
 * Alex Hirsch confirmed to lend his voice in the game, but like Ashy Burch and Scott Porter, his role wasn't revealed yet at the time of his confirmation.
 * The main menu itself was entirely animated by Jenn Strickland.
 * The main menu was originally going to include the song "Lean on Me" by Bill Withers, but this was switched to "Rather Be" by Clean Bandit, then to a score composed by Antimo & Welles until the final decision was made to change the song to the S3 remix of "No Big Deal" by Jakeneutron.
 * However, despite being scrapped, "Rather Be" was used as the first episode's end credits, while "Lean on Me" was used as the final episode's end credits.
 * Antimo & Welles composed the game's soundtrack, remastering some of TJ Hill's work.
 * TJ Hill praised the work of Antimo & Welles' songs, saying they sound better than his.
 * In "The Unknown Temple", if the player chooses to look at a ritual, the ritual will say that what Amphibia was once was, with one of them being the continent originally called "Amphibiland". This is a second nod reference to the pilot of the show, with its first reference being in "The New Normal".
 * The ending to "Battle for the Multiverse" was changed many times to fit into a normal ending.
 * Additionally, when the game was in early development, Sprig and Marcy were going to have determinant fates at the end of the episode, but this was scrapped because they thought the fans themselves did not want to see them "dying" again.
 * Frog-Bot X is rumored to be the successor to the Cloak-Bot.
 * This is the first Telltale game since The Walking Dead: Michonne to not include the text "The Telltale Series", but the Amphibian text underneath the logo translates to "The Telltale Series".
 * However, the rest of LCG's games are subtitled A Telltale Series, making this the first game so far to not include the subtitle.
 * The first episode includes a prologue where it includes a recap of the events of the entire TV show itself.
 * A three-episodic pack, titled "The World of Amphibia", taking place between the first and second seasons, was planned for the game, but was canceled due to budget cuts. However, elements from the pack might be saved for later projects.