In this mini-series from Telltale Games it starts us in somewhat unknown territory in their The Walking Dead adaptations.  Unlike season one’s Lee Everett and season two’s Clementine, we assume the role of an already established and incredibly popular character with the samurai wielding badass that is Michonne.  As I found out to begin with, this developed somewhat of a little problem when it came to making choices in the game.  With the previous Telltale Games adaptation, you have a fresh relationship with Lee and Clem, so as a result the choices that you make are likely to be more of an organic representation and reflection to the person that you are.  However, if you’re a big fan of the comics from Robert Kirkman or the TV series from Frank Darabont, then you will have already built up a one-way relationship with Michonne.

As a result of this one-way relationship, you might begin by making choices that you believe Michonne might make, rather than your own as I struggled to differentiate between the two.  It took me a short while to overcome this mind-set, but if you can get over this hurdle by the midway point of episode one, then you’ll find that this mini-series could very well have as much tension, drama, horror and suspense as Telltale Games previous outings and you’ll start to expand on your emotions with your playable protagonist from another perspective and perhaps even learn some new back-story on Michonne.  Without giving to much away, there were certain aspects of Michonne’s past that were touched upon a fair while ago in the TV series and it seems we may learn more about her past demons in this mini-series.

Gameplay wise this is the same Telltale love affair, with well-timed on-screen QTE prompts that pressure us into making decisions, sometimes often not the best decisions, but that’s one of the reasons we love these games from Telltale.  Visually, it looks as crisp with its comic book styled visuals as say, Game of Thrones.  Obviously it looks a little better then season one or two of The Walking Dead, as they were both games originally developed for last-gen systems.  Now and again this episode (and likely the whole mini-series) does suffer from the occasional jitter when a new scene loads up, which has been a constant issue throughout the history of Telltale Games.

Hopefully they’ll fix these minor issues one day, but albeit, it doesn’t in anyway effect your immersion and enjoyment of the game during its first episode.  One new aspect of the game that I love so far is how it was introduced.  It’s opening cinematic introduction had a movie feel about it and its theme tune “Levite” from J.P.B is fantastic and really helps hype you up for Michonne’s on-going story in this mini-series.

To wrap up the review of episode one in a blood soaked zombie stained blanket, once I separated my decision making away from how I would react to a situation from how I believed Michonne would react, I soon found myself engrossed in her story.  It’s an interesting direction from Telltale, to go from protagonists that they had created, to one of the original established characters whom so many know and love.  It adds an extra level on intrigue as you learn more about the person that Michonne once was to who she is now.

If all goes well, I’d love Telltale Games to take this approach with further mini-series of The Walking Dead; Merle Dixon is one such character that I would love to see explored further as I believe he was a character cut way too short from the TV series.  But for now I look forward to seeing where episode two “Give No Shelter” will take us, before Michonne’s mini-series ends with “What We Deserve”.  Yet again I can’t wait to see where Telltale Games takes us next.

Do you want reveal the Review Score?