![]() ![]() ![]() Maybe you’re fine with an experience that doesn’t diverge completely at every juncture, and just want a good story. After six episodes and dozens of hours, I had made hundreds of decisions, but only about three or four in the final two episodes truly changed anything about my experience.īut maybe that doesn’t matter to you. In the moment, it feels like you’re truly shaping the story with your influence, but one trip to YouTube to watch how else it could’ve played out is all it takes to shatter that feeling for good. They’re movies with light interactive elements in the form of dialogue options and quick-time events. Anyone who’s played one since The Walking Dead knows how they work: divergent choices funneled into convergent paths. It’s been that way with Telltale’s adventures for some time now, of course. Playing Game of Thrones feels like walking through a house of mirrors: at first glance, endless paths stretch in front of you - infinite, overwhelming possibility - but you quickly learn it’s nothing more than an illusion. That’s the question that opened my review of the first episode of Telltale’s Game of Thrones series nearly a year ago and it’s the question that lingered in my mind as I played each subsequent chapter. The game's visual style may also throw off players, with the foreground rendered crisp and clear while there appears to be a watercolour filter blurring any objects or scenery in the background.“Is it more important that your choices in a game matter, or that they feel like they matter?” Though it is worth noting that the speaking glitch was inconsistent and didn't always happen in the same scenes during repeated playthroughs. Setting up dominoes isn't nearly as interesting as watching them fall, and Telltale's latest series is not immune to that issue.Ĭharacter animations are stiff and lack a sense of momentum or urgency during a key battle scene, and a few times I encountered characters speaking without moving their mouths. Telltale is not pulling its punches in capturing an authentic, interactive Game of Thrones experience, and what the episodic game lacks in the series' signature nudity it more than makes up for in other areas.īut while Telltale has certainly stepped up its game in the narrative department, it isn't quite as consistently successful from a technical standpoint. That said, the few events which do come to a head in this first episode show incredible promise for the series going forward, showing hints of what could distinguish the Forresters as unique and once leaving me literally slack-jawed staring at the screen in disbelief. There are also a number of uncomfortably convenient parallels between the circumstances and character geography of House Forrester and another more well-known Game of Thrones family, bordering on being formulaic. ![]() The downside is that 'Iron from Ice' is not a particularly self-contained episode, with much of it spent making choices as set up for the rest of the series and very few of those choices panning out before the credits roll. What makes it even more interesting is that there is a very tangible sense that a decision intended to help one character could easily have unintended fallout for the others. More so even than any of Telltale's past games, every conversation Ethan or Mira have is fraught with choices that promise to have far-reaching implications for the story. The Forrester children offer an excellent dichotomy of trying and navigate the volatile political and social landscape of Westeros, Ethan from the family's keep of Ironrath in the North and Mira from within the castle at King's Landing. Like the show and books, Telltale's episodic Game of Thrones features multiple main characters and swaps perspectives between them frequently.Īnd while the episode starts with house Forrester's squire at a certain infamous wedding, the story quickly settles into a pattern alternating between two of the Forrester children, Ethan and Mira. The first episode, 'Iron from Ice,' introduces fans to House Forrester, a noble house from Northern Westeros which lays claim to the kingdom's primary supply of valuable ironwood.Īs a fairly obscure family, barely a footnote in the books and never mentioned in the show, the Forresters offer a ripe blank slate for telling an original story. While the prerequisite familiarity may limit the game's audience, those with the necessary foreknowledge are treated to a game that takes full advantage of what the Game of Thrones licence can offer.
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