Finished Minecraft Story Mode (Episodes 1-4) today. It’s basically like a Minecraft campaign for Dungeons & Dragons, scripted as a movie. It’s also the first of the Telltale games/interactive movies I’ve played.
Good bits:
- The visuals are top notch. Very Minecraft-authentic (at least if you’ve ever played the game with a shader pack installed), with a few concessions here and there (mostly character rigging and animations, which are significantly more detailed than in-game). The episode intros tend to be action-packed and end with some fun camera work.
- Plot seems decent. Telltale’s shtick is player choices that affect how characters in the game view you, how certain events pan out, who survives, etc. I don’t have much of a comparison point since this is my first, but it seemed well done.
- Doesn’t wear out its welcome. Each episode takes 90 minutes to 2 hours.
Bad bits:
- Can’t save wherever you want. I played through the first 10 minutes or so twice, because the game doesn’t save until halfway through the second region. It’s not the end of the world; you just need at least 30-45 minutes to sit down with it (I’d recommend playing a whole episode at once though).
- A couple weird plot holes; nothing major.
- You don’t…do…very much. The game alternates between action sequences (basically on-rails with QTEs) and puzzle/social sections (talk to people, interact with objects, etc). The core is obviously the choice system, but in general the game didn’t feel very meaty.
Next up is Tales of the Borderlands, a similar product for the Borderlands game series.