This episode of the point-and-click BLOCK-busting (geddit?) adventure, titled Jailhouse Block, picks up right where the previous episode left off. After revealing his true identity, the Admin (who will be your villain for this season) sends the main hero Jesse and his/her Friends to a prison known as the Sunshine Institute, which is literally at the bottom of the world (wouldn't be the center of the world though? #StoryModeLogic) filled with people who have opposed the Admin in the past... And Bob Ross.
The entire episode is spent trying to escape this prison, and before anyone puts on the Captain Obvious cap and say "But it's Minecraft! They can just punch/mine their way to freedom!" They can't. Not only is the entire prison inside the center of a labyrinth made of Obsidian, which in the Minecraft universe can only be destroyed by a Diamond Pickaxe (or better, if you take fan made mods into account since literally every fan made mod adds something better than Diamond), but the entire facility has permanent Mining Fatigue (a kind of spell that makes blocks harder to destroy) AND the ground is made of Bedrock, which is completely indestructible. Something that I think is kind of a missed opportunity is how despite the fact that Minecraft Story Mode is a game where your moral choices have a butterfly effect and permanently alter the story, you don't have any choice in your escape plan. I mean, how you pull it off is up to you, but it stays largely the same regardless of what kind of playthrough you're doing.
But all in all, the story was good. It had decent pacing, and seeing a Minecraft-ized prison is oddly humorous. This prison here is also surprisingly sadistic, to say the least. In one cell block, the inmates are literally forced to fight over a small handful of mushrooms or risk starving starve to death. In another, the inmates are have no choice but to kill (and EAT!!!) endless hordes of zombies every few minutes. That second one is definitely disturbing both in the context of the Minecraft universe and out. Seriously, it's like something out of a psychological horror film, but cleverly disguised as a kids' game.
The gameplay here is again, near identical to that of the previous episodes. Or literally any game made by TellTale. It's divided into three segments, the first and most frequently used of the three are interactive cutscenes where you can pick and choose what Jesse says/does during cutscenes. They're nice for immersion, though on subsequent playthroughs some of the choices's consequences felt anticlimactic. The most egregious example is when MILD SPOILER ALERT! Jesse's adorable secretary Radar (aka YURI LOWENTHAL!!!!) is being tortured as leverage to convince Jesse to join the "Dark Side" so to speak. On my first playthrough I was under the impression that Radar would die if you chose not to comply, and being the nice guy that I am, I decided to comply so that Radar wouldn't die. Then I did a second playthrough and out of curiosity I decided not to comply, and turns out Radar survives the torture no matter what, but his glasses will remain broken for the rest of the season (which is kind of mundane given he was being tortured). One of my biggest pet peeves with Story Mode is how some choices are drastic, but others have near-identical outcomes. It kind of kills the immersion a little when your choices don't have as much of an impact. Then again, it's entirely possible that these seemingly miniscule choices do have more pronounced consequences once Episodes 4 and 5 are released. Plus, I can only imagine the nightmares TellTale has when scripting possible outcomes.
The other two segments I found more enjoyable this time around. The action sequences, while chock full of Quick Time Events, are incredibly fun to watch. Performing well at the action sequences results in Jesse being as acrobatic as a Matrix character with swordplay rivaling that of a Jedi Knight. That is very high praise in case you don't speak nerd. It's also true with the previous two episodes, but I never brought it up until now. It's definitely a step up from when Jesse was a clumsy novice back in Season 1 and really shows that TellTale has been sure to keep him/her in top shape. I also liked the one-vs-one (sometimes one-vs-three) sword duels where you control Jesse directly, especially a climatic duel that I won't spoil here.
Cool Minecrafters don't look at explosions
And finally, the tried'n'true point-and-click adventure format that makes up the last segment of the gameplay. During these segments, Jesse is free to roam around as s/he pleases, click on objects to examine/interact with them, solve puzzles, and talk to NPC's. New to this season however is the ability to freely build whatever you desire within certain spaces, and some objectives require you to build SOMETHING. These segments are the rarest of them all (in this episode they are used literally three times total) but are still enjoyable. I know some folks despise them due to being comparatively "boring", but they break up the pace rather fluidly and give you, the player, a breather.
Also, this episode has some plot revelations that are intriguing to say the least. The Admin, as a villain, is still a fantastic villain, thanks to his charmingly flamboyant personality and some amazing voice-work. My only real concern with the Admin is at the present moment, he seems a little too powerful. I mean, yeah, he's the closest thing the Minecraft universe has to a god. But seriously, he can shape-shift, warp reality, use telekinesis, has an immunity to most weapons, and can build entire structures in a fraction of a second (one power that every Minecraft player wished they had). In other words, he is by far the most powerful villain Jesse and Friends have faced. This is similar to a problem that the Pokemon franchise as well as the Dragon Ball franchise have, they keep trying to make their villains grander and more powerful than the previous one. At least Pokemon solved their problem by having the most recent villains (Team Skull!) be significantly less imposing than their predecessors to "reset" the cycle. In the event we get a season 3, or heck, an Adventure Pass (Adventure Passes are things TellTale makes for their particularly successful games that extends the season by an additional three episodes), the only way for them to continue is to "reset" the cycle as well. My point is, it's going to be EXTREMELY difficult to make a Story Mode villain as good as the Admin.
And of course, I have to talk about the moment towards the final act of this episode. If you don't want spoilers, skip on ahead. Basically, later on in this episode, you will be forced to make a sadistic choice of impeccable scale. Without ruining it too much, I can say that this choice alone is part of why I consider this episode to be better than the previous episode. It literally made me pause the game, put my controller down, think real hard about the decision, make the decision after ten minutes of mentally battling myself, feel incredibly guilty about it afterwards, play through the game on my backup save file, make the opposite choice, and STILL feel guilty about it. You know how I griped about them giving Radar Plot Armor during the torture scene? This decision has the kind of depth I wanted from the torture scene. It's the kind of choice that will have very dramatic consequences, and I love it when games make choices actually matter. Basically, that choice is a "story altering" decision done right.
As for the presentation, the artstyle is still the same old "world is made out of cubes" aesthetic that the original Minecraft became famous for. The set-pieces are nice, as the Sunshine Institute looks like a stereotypical maximum security prison but in Minecraft form. But other than that, it's fairly average. The music is slower and more atmospheric than the norm, which fits the whole, "trapped at the bottom/center of the world in a nigh-inescapable prison" motif. It's also heavy on the percussions, now that I'm thinking about it.
Giiiiiiii!!!!!!!
This episode might be my favorite of this season so far, thanks to the prison motif and having a gut-wrenching choice towards the end, but it has yet to top Episode 5 of Season 1, which remains to this day my favorite thanks to not only canonizing the popular fan-made Minecraft minigame/self-imposed challenge known as Skyblock (where a group of Minecraft players are trapped on a floating island and have to micromanage limited resources while completing as many tasks given to them as humanly possible) but also being by far the most self-contained episode without being a pointless filler episode (looking at you, Episode 8). I give this episode a 9/10.
P.S. Before you ask, yes, Bob Ross is actually in this episode. Sort of. There's an NPC called Rob that looks like a Minecraft-ized version of Bob Ross.
You should be working for Game Informer. Js.
ReplyDeleteThey are missing out.