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Traditionally the original Minecraft is a game in which you can make your own adventures with things you build or what you unearth, however it nevertheless does have a narrative. A simple and small one granted, but one that you can find if you want/dare to look for it. The story isn’t essential and is superfluous to enjoying yourself when all you want to do is break some blocks, build convoluted properties or inventions and survive the nights that are full of zombies, skeletons and spiders.
Minecraft: Story Mode takes everything that is familiar to the game, and creates rules to distill down the essence of what it would be like to humanoid, albeit a blocky one, and exist in such a world. How would Minecraft people live? What would they enjoy doing? Telltale does a good job of this and, like the recent LEGO movie if you will, shows this without being too rigid or serious.
In the game you play Jesse. Jesse is a character that can sport of a multitude of ethnicities and can either be male of female, this is up to you and I was unable to ascertain if any of this had an impact on the story. He/she and his/her friends (one of which is a pig named Reuben) set off on an adventure to win a fierce building contest to have the teams structure take prize place at EnderCon, a convention celebrating everything Minecraft offers. Along the teams way they meet some friends, enemies and acquaintances that, like in every other Telltale game of recent years, allow for banter and abuse. These characters then remember the outcome which carry repercussions for not only episode 1, but is fathomable all the way to episode 5! Do I be nice to the bully in the hope that my “one good turn deserves another” approach pays off at some point in the future, or do I punch them in the square in his square face and show the same disdain they’ve shown me? This is always up to you. Thankfully the gravity of these choices, certainly for this episode, is mostly negligible. Unlike some quite hard decisions that need to be made in Telltales The Walking Dead or Game of Thrones no one will die …well, you maybe have a couple of tough choices to make, but once the episode was completed I was happy to see the breakdown of community statistics and the ones I *felt* were right, the majority had done the same.
Minecraft: Story Mode is aimed at fans of the original Mojang game. This tricky thing is that this demographic is a particularly younger one than Telltale have taken aim at before however they’ve done a good job! Characterizations are fun, charming and likeable. My young sprog, who is starting to become curious of daddy playing Minecraft, spotted the game and instantly became drawn in to the dialogue and games stars. Her affections and interest were most noticeably focused on Jesse’s chief companion, Reuben the pig. Like a swine Scooby Doo, Reuben is an odd character to appear but works very well adding a defenseless non-verbal character that, gosh darn, you do care about. A lot of the early choices in the game revolve around him and how he should be treated. One chief scene has you choosing between your contest success or potentially the life of your oinking pal! Do I save his literal bacon, or do I be a selfish dick and aim for glory and fame? (In my case love and bacon triumphs over all). Back to the story and without giving too much away, you arrive at EnderCon, a deal is made by Jesse’s new plucker Nether scavenging friend Petra that goes bad, and you and cohorts must turn Mystery Inc. to uncover a plot that has quite epic repercussions for this world.
Gameplay wise, I’d say 65% of the time you’re sat on rails watching the story unfold, 25% you’re making decisions on what to say or do using multiple dialog boxes, and the final 10% you have to control Jesse as you navigate or respond to quick time events. In these events you for example have to mine or build things (naturally) by mashing a key repeatedly and use timed clicks to fight zombies and dodge obstacles.
Graphically Telltale have lifted every asset Mojang has to offer and taken very few liberties. The only noticeable thing that took a bit of getting used to was facial expressions and mouth movement. They work but feel out of place, but other than that all the same rules are applied. I was particularly impressed with some of the devices that had been built in the game as they worked one-to-one with how they should appear, which was a nice touch indeed. Use of perspective and lighting in particular are well handled giving an high definition and, as much as it can, real worldly feel. Musical compositions are new for the game but happily mirror the originals inspiration appropriately.
Having some Minecraft knowledge appears to be key to *getting* the game, however with over 70 million copies sold (I’ll let that number sink in for a second) I don’t believe many in the civilized world won’t recognise a hissing creeper or blocky green zombie when they came face to face with one. Because of this the developers have included sections of the game in which you turn to a crafting table to make things. A recipe book is available to be viewed but for those in the know, making a sword without reference is particular rewarding.
My only gripe is that one particular logic puzzle towards the end of the episode did have me stumped for a good while. Even though the premise seemed simple, for younger gamers this may be challenging – or maybe I was just being more gormless than one of the games sheep.
Episode 1 will take you around a couple of hours to play through, which is a reasonable time to set things up and hook you in for the full five episode series. I can see Minecraft: Story Mode being quite a smash for Telltale once, much like the original game, word gets around. Characters are likable, dialog is zingy and the adventure is set to be epic. Wither or not you’ve played a Telltale title before this is the great example of an an adventure game. Alternatively if you’re a fan of Minecraft, or after a feel good experience, you’ll get a Ocelot from it and has Mooshroom to grow!
…
It wasn’t Ghast’ly.
…
That’s it. I Endermite be done.
Episode 1 of Minecraft: Story Mode is available now digitally via Telltale themselves and Steam for PC and Mac, PSN for PlayStation 3 and 4, and Xbox Games Store for Xbox One and Xbox 360. It’s also available via the App Store for iOS and for Android via Google Play and Amazon Appstore.
A retail version is also on the crafting table for release on October 27th for North America and October 30th within Europe.