Before we continue, I have two majorly important things to say. First of all, what the heck, Telltale? Why is it so difficult to find screenshots of the relevant episodes!? Seriously, I spend more time searching the Internet for decent images (that AREN'T edited thumbnails for YouTube videos, because YouTube literally explodes when one of these episodes comes out) to use on my blog. I never have this kind of problem when I review literally every other game. Granted, the only games I've played that use a episodic business model are Minecraft Story Mode and it's sequel, Minecraft Story Mode Season 2, and King's Quest. That's something I need to review at some point, since I reviewed the first episode and completely forgot to review the other four. Anyways, on to more pressing issues. There will most definitely be spoilers for the previous episode, but let's be real, we're at the freaking penultimate episode. Of course, the only spoilers I'll give away are things that occur in Episodes 1-3. In the event you haven't read any of my previous reviews (in which case, why are you reading them out of order?), basically Minecraft Story Mode Season 2 is the sequel to Minecraft Story Mode, which, in turn, is a spin-off of the over-night classic known as Minecraft. The general premise for the Story Mode series is basically, throw a bunch of lovable teen(?) misfits on an adventure to save the world from insert villain of the episode here. Oh, and everything (and every-ONE) is made of geometric cubes and the game is filled to the brim with jokes only people who play Minecraft will understand.
Jesse did the Super Hero Landing!
Last time, on Minecraft Story Mode Season 2, our hero, Jesse, and all of his/her friends barely escaped the villainous Romeo(aka Admin)'s nefarious prison, but are forced to leave a beloved friend behind. This time, with the aide of new ally Xara, Jesse and Friends must explore a world that's, wait for it, BELOW THE BEDROCK (Title Drops FTW!) to find a superweapon that can take away the villain's superpowers, giving our intrepid heroes a fair fight. Along the way they will nightmarish foes such as giant versions of the already spooky-looking Endermen, bandits, and even a ruthless assassin (whose identity will most definitely make fans of Season 1 scream like goat-children) Romeo/Admin hired to kill Jesse.
Now this episode has a much slower pace than the previous episodes, which is by far it's biggest draw back. That, and the Scavengers, who show up once, offer to save you from impending doom in exchange for your weapons, leave, and are never brought up again. Unless they reappear in Episode 5, but I kind of doubt it. If they do reappear in a future Episode, then, well, I have no choice but to do a sarcastically slow applause while saying "Gee Gee, TellTale. Gee Gee".
Giant Enderman!
What I will say that I LOVE about this episode, is this is the episode where the entire premise of the game (making moral choices at regular intervals, all of which have severe consequences that will permanently alter the story) reaches it's logical extreme. You get to see almost all the consequences of choices made in previous episodes, and most impressively, there are different outcomes based on different combinations of these choices. Heck, some of the moral choices in this episode have almost immediate consequences.
Woo Hoo, Shirtless Radar! Trying to impress the
ladies in the group, are we?
Anyway, something else worth noting about this episode is that delves surprisingly deep into the Admin's back story, specifically before he started calling himself the Admin and became a charismatic but obviously demented god-like creature. It even goes to some dark places, such as you tracking down clues left behind by the Admin's former best friend (who he murdered in a fit of rage long before the season began) to find the superweapon. But with such a heavy focus on story, there's not a whole lot of action going on, aside from one memorable duel with the aforementioned assassin. Which, depending on your choices, you could miss out on. And the fact that there's a boss fight against a giant Golem made of magma. And no, not a typical "Press the button on the screen to not die" type boss fights that this franchise is infamous for, but a real, honest to goodness boss battle. Those are the only really memorable action sequences from this episode, because even though the Giant Enderman was neat, it wasn't as impressive or creepy as the previous monsters (The Mega-Ghast is still my favorite boss in the franchise).
Just like the previous episodes (starting to sound like a broken record here), gameplay is divided into three segments. First, and most frequent, interactive cutscenes where you the player can pick (from one of 4 options) what Jesse says and does during cutscenes. Thankfully, there are no poorly worded choices this time around, because one of my biggest gripes with this game mechanic is some of the options are phrased to make it sound like it means one thing but when you choose it Jesse's actual response takes on a completely different meaning. Season 2 has done a good job making sure the choices make sense. It's definitely a step up from the infamous "Save the Machine vs Find Reuben" choice back in Season 1 (I still have not forgiven Telltale for such devious miswording...).
Has Petra confessed her obvious feelings for Jesse?
Will they become the #PowerCouple of the Story Mode-verse?
Find out next time on Minecraft Story Mode: Twilight Edition!
Anyway, the second major game mechanic are the action sequences, which are the second most frequent. We all know the drill by now, so say it with me; Press the buttons on screen to not die. And, again, I must reassure you all that I have nothing against "Quick Time Events" as they are officially called. For a point-and-click adventure game, it makes perfect sense to have the more action-oriented moments be done in a Quick-Time Event format. Something you have to give Telltale credit for, though, is the aforementioned battle against a giant Magma Golem. That boss battle, in addition to #ShirtlessRadar and semi-implying that Jesse and Petra might have romantic feelings for each other (which is slightly awkward because you can make Jesse female at the beginning of the game, so...), are easily the highlights of this episode. But alas! Telltale's poor grammar strikes again! You wanna know why?
The hint at the beginning of the boss fight says "Lure the Magma Golem to the Pressure Plates". It also says "Press [insert button here] to switch targets". First of all, because of the way the hint is worded, you would think the smart thing would be to wait for the Magma Golem to come to you, right? WRONG! You're supposed to get up in it's face and press the Pressure Plates yourself. And going back to the switching targets thing, I don't know why but the switch targets button didn't work for me, since no matter how many times I pressed it, Jesse (and the camera) were perma-locked at the Magma Golem. So instead of wording a choice to make sound like the opposite of the meaning, they did almost the exact same thing TO THE HINT SYSTEM. This is not *Viva Pinata, Telltale. Go take grammar lessons so we don't have these problems.
Rant aside, we have one last game mechanic to cover; The puzzle bits. Here, the game becomes a traditional point-and-click, and you point. And you click. In all seriousness, these segments are there for when you need a breather from narrowly escaping the jaws of death or making moral choices that will either strengthen or worsen friendships, relationships, battleships, spaceships, and every other kind of ship you can think of. I will say that the most pronounced puzzle segment, when Jesse needs to gather information for a trivia contest (don't ask) so he can get the first clue to the location of the superweapon feels like padding/filler. You could literally remove the whole trivia contest shenanigans and the episode would remain largely the same. I mean, keep the location it takes place at, since it looks beautiful, just remove the trivia contest and streamline the trip. I get the reason the trivia contest exists is to add some lighthearted fun into what is arguably the darkest and most mature (in theme, not in content!) episode of the season. But there are plenty of memorable moments that do the job better, such as the assassin's secret identity, the antics of minor characters Vas and Soup, and the fact this episode's opening is eerily similar to 60's era Scooby Doo!.
As for the presentation, the music is surprisingly good this time around. Minecraft Story Mode has never had bad music, but there were only a handful of tunes that are so good you would want to listen to them repeatedly. But this episode had some great tunes. From a stereotypical game show theme playing during some of the more lighthearted moments, to a sombre, melancholic track that plays when you finally find the superweapon. Oh, and Jack (who is the Minecraft Story Mode version of Chuck Norris) sings the most epic shanty during this episode's end credits. If anything, this episode is worth playing just for Jack's Shanty. But before the thought leaves my mind, I gotta say, the voice acting is still as good as ever.
And for once, I saved graphics for last. Normally I save music and sound for last. But anyway, the set-pieces remind me a lot of the early days of Minecraft Story Mode, as the World Below the Bedrock looks like a cross between a Mesa Biome (complete with reddish-orange sand) and the Nether dimension (complete with lava geysers), and one of the very first episodes had Jesse and friends brave the Nether, albeit for a short time. Then you have Fred's Keep, which is where the first clue to the superweapon is, which is covered in bioluminescent mushrooms and is very visually stunning, and looks like a underground version of Sky City from Season 1 Episode 5. Anyway, the last major thing I wanted to talk about is how this episode gave me some Mad Max or, perhaps more accurately, Fallout vibes, due to the post-apocalyptic theme this episode has throughout. So depending on whether you like that kind of aesthetic will determine if the majority of the set pieces are good-looking.
But all in all, I give Minecraft Story Mode Season 2 Episode 4: Below the Bedrock an 8/10. It's not the worst episode by a long shot, but it's pacing kind of left much to be desired. It makes up for a set piece so beautiful that I can't find any decent pictures of it, as well as having the best soundtrack yet. All that's left now is Minecraft Story Mode Episode 5: Above and Beyond and we'll have covered every single episode of season 2 of Minecraft Story Mode. Unless TellTale extends it. And they probably will because Minecraft is one of the biggest cash cows on the planet (coming second only to Pokemon in that regard), the Story Mode spin-off series rakes in a fair amount of money, and given Minecraft Story Mode's business model of releasing "episodes" for $5 per episode and basically drip-feeding the content throughout the year, it's incredibly easy for TellTale to make more episodes. Because, random fun fact, all the set pieces you see in the game were built using the original Minecraft's Creative Mode, then copy-pasted and ever so slightly edited to accommodate things that exist in the Story Mode-verse (realistic shading, 3-dimensional items, a fourth shade of the color blue, etc) that don't exist in Minecraft proper.
*- Viva Pinata was an obscure game created by Microsoft intended to compete with Pokemon. The game was met with mostly negative attention. Adults hated it because it was too bright and cheery and colorful (that last one is a stupid complaint in my opinion), and kids hated it because of the confusing game mechanics and for the tutorial literally lying to your face about well-over half of the things the tutorial is SUPPOSED TO BE TEACHING YOU ABOUT. I actually played it when I was younger, but back then I considered it to be just plain boring. I would love to do a review on it now that I'm old enough to understand how the game works, but I can't replay Viva Pinata anymore, since the game was discontinued and was so bad a flop that Microsoft shut down all the servers years ago. Morale of the story? Don't try to compete with Pokemon. Your franchise will be dead before it even goes mainstream..
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