The Walking Dead: Michonne Review
Played on Xbox One (base)
Developed by Telltale Games
Released 23rd February 2016
Originally planned for release as DLC for The Walking Dead: Season 2 in 2015, Telltale shifted their only The Walking Dead spin-off title as a standalone entry that would launch alongside the episodic releases of A New Frontier, the third game in the series. This spin-off follows the comic and TV show favourite Michonne and explores her story while she was absent between issues #126 and #139.
Story
As mentioned, the story centres around where Michonne was during the events of The Walking Dead comics. At first, this seems like you have to flick and speed-read through all 100 or so comics to understand what's going on but luckily the game is more gracious to the player. The game simultaneously tackles Michonne's past and the cause of her PTSD symptoms, while artistically reflecting them onto the current narrative taking place. The warped reality and switch between past and present are fantastic and haunting, making certain QTEs (Quick Time Events) stand out while making the dialogue feel more consequential even if it wasn't. However, other than that, there's nothing that supports this game's tale as the story taking place is very generic, done before and better in other The Walking Dead media, and it mostly bored me for the 3 hours this mini-season takes to finish.
Gameplay
The gameplay is still that of a Telltale game. The areas where I'm able to point'n'click and navigate my way through are great. I was able to interact with the smaller, more mundane objects that still delivered the world-building I adore these games for. The QTEs are the best in The Walking Dead series as each button pressed felt clean and sharp, and the cinematic perspective helps sharpen that really badass feel even if the actions themselves are quite regular like killing a walker, etc. To add to the cinematography, black bars would appear on the top and bottom of the screen which made each moment tenser, however, the transition in and out of them would be quite jarring to the eyes.
The dialogue and the choices compliment the majority of the cast - flavourless. The game manages to make each choice feel incredibly unimportant and it keeps that promise. No certain amount of bad dialogue or action can change how certain characters look at you and the choices made don't bear any judgemental weight. To add a cherry on top of the garbage; you can't even see the choices you or other players made - no statistics, no option, nada. The game manages to introduce a new mechanic of shaking your joystick/mouse back and forth, however, they only utilise this neat idea twice which is unfortunate to see.
Characters
The characters, as mentioned before, are flavourless. The only members of the cast that are great and truly resemble interesting personas are walker-slaying Michonne, and Pete, the only optimist left in the world of the apocalypse. The two manage to bounce off each other well and compliment the more bland characters to the point that it even manages to make the player care for them, however, every one by themselves, struggles to make an intriguing character arc that the player is willingly following and interacting with.
Atmosphere
The atmosphere is average. The soundtrack is impeccable and the closest that Telltale has gotten to perfect alongside the first season of the games. Sound effects and voice acting is nothing that should be insulted or complimented as it's just average. However, the bleak design of the world is terrible. At some points, there are areas that blossom with great design and attention to detail and their dark imagery is the source of shock and intrigue in the story, but considering you mostly stay in one location for the second half of the game, it ends up failing to captivate. However, the comic-like design is still amazing and didn't need any of the fancy reworks that A New Frontier tried to do and failed at.
Story- 5/10
Gameplay- 5.5/10
Characters- 4/10
Atmosphere- 6/10
Subpar
With how over-hated this game was on release, it ends up being a better experience that many probably remember it for. It still has a drab story and boring characters, but much of its polish partially redeems those faults.
