At this point, I am beginning to think that the Minecraft: Story Mode titles are what they are. I don't necessarily mean that as a bad thing, as the series has been generally decent, without a lot of surprises or narrative growth that really improved over time. I have had a chance to play just about every Telltale adventure game they have released so far, and Minecraft: Story Mode Season Two - Episode 2: Giant Consequences continues the trend of good but not great episodes set in a Minecract world.
So Giant Consequences naturally picks up right where the prior chapter left us hanging. The Admin is the focal point here, and that makes sense as it gets us off to a pretty fast start. Now, to its credit, while the story and characters have not grown and developed perhaps as much as I wish they had, the mechanics carry over the improvement we saw from the first episode. Building was very rigid in the first season - something that never really sat well with me given the free flowing and imaginative nature of Minecraft itself. So in this season's first episode, imagine my surprise when a more free form style of building was presented?
Additionally, the first season tried to shoehorn in some combat sequences every now and then, but they were clumsy and not a lot of fun. Again the combat benefits in season two from tightening things up, and a sort of off-shoot mini-game involving some new shooting mechanics continues to add some variety to the mix. All of these changes are absolutely welcome and make the actual act of playing Story Mode fun.
This makes it a bit easier to enjoy Minecraft: Story Mode Season Two - Episode 2: Giant Consequences, even if I just really have not gotten into the story this season. The Admin has the potential to be an interesting protagonist, but I'm just not sold on that yet. The quest started with an interesting premise: Go find a magical clock that can allow one to control what time of day it is. However, there are some choices along the way that can lead to some truly branching story paths. This is great as it gives us more ownership over the actual evolution of the story, but... it sure did feel short. Maybe it was the briskly paced shooting gallery and combat scenes. Maybe it was simply because this was a very action-heavy episode. Maybe by trying to delineate the narrative it is just too hard for the team to put together a lot of overall content. It is hard to say, but boy this felt like a brief episode, which is a shame because I was enjoying it the vast majority of the time.
I think perhaps the biggest issue is I haven't really taken to Jesse's companions this season. In truth, I did not really care for most of her friends in season one either, and again the likes of Stella and Radar just are not clicking for me yet this season. They were all given a bit more screen time and opportunities to develop into more than their early impressions. They just... haven't really, at least not for me.
However, not all hope is lost. It is possible that one of the companions could truly become unique and interesting, giving Jesse someone to have more meaningful interactions with. So far however, I will have to keep myself satisfied with the knowledge that the game's mechanics are evolving in new and interesting ways, even if the characters really aren't yet.
Game Information
Xbox One
Developer(s):
Telltale Games
Publisher(s):
Telltale Games
Genre(s):
Adventure
Mode(s):
Single Player
Other Platform(s):
Mobile
PC
PlayStation 4
Source:
Provided by Publisher
Article by Nick
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