When Marvel announced their partnership with Telltale, I was a little tired with Telltale’s formula. The walk and talk simulators were getting alittle stale for me and the QTEs haven’t changed enough for me to care at all. At the time, I didn’t feel as though the games had changed enough for me to care. Now that I have played through episode 1 I can safely say that I am back in, at least for this particular adventure. Telltale’s Guardians of the Galaxy Episode One is one of my favorite adaptions Telltale has ever done. It remains true to the spirit of the group and has a lot of fun moments that left me smiling.
Now before I get started on the story I am going to publicly state that yes, The Telltale Engine still has a LOT of problems. The stuttering and freezing still happens and sometimes the models freak out occasionally. For example, In the Bar scene with the gang: Rockets model almost T-posed on me. I was talking to him and his arms started spinning around for like a split second. Aside from that the frame rate chugged for me twice. Telltale still hasn’t fixed the problem and it is very noticeable. That being said, lets get into the story.
Here is is quick rundown of the story of the game. Episode 1 starts out with The team getting a distress call from the Nova Corps. Apparently they are under attack from a certain Mad Titan. This leads to a pretty cool QTE fight scene that ends with a conclusion that is pretty shocking if you are a fan of the the comics. Turns out Thanos was after something called the Eternity forge. It seems to be some sort of mysterious ancient relic that Thanos DEFINITELY should not get his hands on. Eventually a mysterious new enemy emerges and also wants the Eternity Forge. So naturally the Guardians give chase. After a brief skirmish, the true nature of the Eternity Forge is revealed.
Now, this game features some pretty tough decisions. One of which I had to really think about. Maybe its because this game features the Guardians, but I really feel like I care about these characters and what happens to them. For example, it is revealed one character feels like they are gonna leave the team. Before he leaves though we have to get rid of some “dead weight”. We are presented with two choices. One person wants to hand it over to the Nova Corps and the Teammate in question wants to sell it to the Collector at a high price. I chose the the Nova corps and the character stormed off. I felt so bad that I may have hurt my friends feelings. The fact that the story actually made me feel bad for my decision serves as an example of the story’s strength.
The game also feature some interesting character building with Star Lord’s past on earth. For me, this is the most interesting story bit in the game. I have never seen anyone expand upon Peter’s childhood on earth in such a way and I highly enjoyed it. I think it adds a little more to Star Lord’s character and it serves as another example of the strength of the story Telltale is trying to tell
Now as for the dialogue, I think they really nailed the tone of the Guardians. Rocket and Star Lord are as snarky as ever. Drax still remains blissfully dumb and takes everything literally. Groot is pretty much just friendly old Groot while Gamora has taken on the role as the team’s “Mom.” Every little bit of sass left me with a smile on my face and no line feels cringe-worthy at all. This culminates the strength of the writing and adds up to an interesting and enjoyable story.
If there is one thing I don’t like about the story, its that the new villian is kind of lackluster. She feels like a rehash of the movie version of Ronan the Accuser, so much so that her title is literally: “The Accuser”. I am still relatively early in the story technically so that could change but I feel like her introduction was lacking. They have access to a whole universe of galactic villains and they chose this one. I hope the next couple episodes flesh her character out a little more. This is of course a minor annoyance though seeing as it is just the first episode, and my opinion may very well change depending on what happens in the later episodes.
Pros:
Enjoyable Story
Interesting Character Development
Fun Dialogue
Cons:
Lackluster Villian
Telltale Engine still not fixed
All in all I highly recommend Telltale’s Guardians of the Galaxy. If you are looking for a fun space outlaw adventure then this game is might be for you. I look forward to playing the next episode!
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