Telltale Games has been on a roll lately with their adventure games. The stride started with The Walking Dead and has continued on to The Wolf Among Us, Borderlands, and Game of Thrones. Their latest addition to their franchise stable is Minecraft. Minecraft: Story Mode attempts to give the immensely popular game something it has never really had, a story. Telltale has tackled some of our favorite franchises and delivered but this is the first one not directed entirely at an adult audience, can they still strike gold?
The game appropriately starts with episode one, entitled “The Order of the Stone.” The Order of the Stone, made up of four heroes, famously took out a mysterious and powerful creature known as the Ender Dragon some time ago. In the present day, your name is Jessie and are not one of this Order but an ordinary person. You, along with your friends Olivia, Axel, and pet pig Rueben are off to compete in a competition known as EnderCon. This is a competition that you’ve gone to several times before and have lost each time but you hope this one will be different. Plus, the winner of this year’s competition will get to meet Gabriel, the legendary fighter from the Order of the Stone. Obviously, things do not go completely according to plan and a great evil is unleashed into the world and it’s up to you and your band of friends to stop it.
The first episode is a great start to the promising story. There are a lot of nice choices sprinkled throughout and as the story rapidly escalates towards the end, the choices get more and more dire. Your band of friends will meet a lot of different people and have to work with a lot of different people. Personalities will clash, choices will have to be made, and consequences will happen. The second episode expounds upon this and keeps the action moving forward. Overall, expect the same high quality content you’ve gotten from Telltale. Some choices are benign but sprinkled throughout are some good ones that feel like they will have some real consequences down the line. And the story is not always completely dark, at least at the beginning. There are some good laughs to be had and some slower parts to take in the surroundings. If you are a fan of Minecraft, there are a ton of references to the base game. The big win is while the story may not have the depth and complexity as some of Telltale’s other games, it still feels really entertaining. It feels that they did a good job crafting something that both younger and older audiences can enjoy.
Minecraft: Story Mode at its heart is an adventure game and more importantly, a Telltale game. If you’ve played any of their recent games, this one does nothing different. The gameplay formula has worked time and time again and still feels fresh. If you have never experienced a Telltale adventure game, they’re strong story-based games that have choice. It is often told through cutscenes with you choosing dialog and actions for your character. Periodically, you’ll have a small hub in which to talk to various characters and do something from a third-person perspective. While this game may have action and shooting of arrows, it’s not an action game. It probably best summed up as a choose your own adventure television episode than anything else. Overall, the Telltale formula still works great and feels really good. The one downside to this is that the game may have too much reading and quick-time events for the youngest fans of the Minecraft franchise so they may need a little help playing.
One of the main complaints with Telltales games have been the graphics. What was once charming, has started to look awfully similar from game to game. The issue is that the content chosen for their last games has an affinity for being compared to real life like with Game of Thrones. With Minecraft, they don’t have to worry about that. The graphics engine works perfect here to recreate what you’d expect. The world, the characters, the buildings, and everything seems to have been ripped straight from the game. Some changed obviously had to be made to make characters more expressive but overall everything fits. Minecraft compliments their graphical engine quite well.
Another aspect that fans will appreciate is the sound design. Everything is faithful to the core game. Creepers sound like creepers, zombies sound like zombies. Basically, everything sounds familiar and what’s new fits in great. The voice acting is great. There are a lot of characters and they all deliver. The music is similarly done well and fits perfectly. The one complaint is I wish they went stronger on the music for the training montage but I am a sucker for a good 80’s montage songs. Overall the rich sound design that the core game has is built upon with great voice acting and music.
Telltale appears to be digging towards gold again. The first two episodes of Minecraft: The Story are quite good and should appeal to both Telltale and Minecraft fanbases. The first episode set a great tone for what is to come and the second episode, albeit short, shows promise. If you’re a fan of Telltale’s prior work, this contains the same high quality that you expect. If you’re unfamiliar but have an affinity for Minecraft, this may definitely be up your alley. The biggest downfall is that this game has a lot of reading and some timed sections so the youngest fans of the franchise may need help to play. Overall, a great start to another great story from Telltale.
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