Review — Minecraft: Story Mode — A Block And A Hard Place

Minecraft: Story Mode

We Sit Down And Review Minecraft: Story Mode — A Block And A Hard Place. This Is The Fourth Episode Of Telltale’s Take On Mojang’s Famed Franchise. Here’s Our Review On How They Did

It’s been a bit of time but we’ve been able to dig into the fourth episode of Minecraft: Story Mode and see how the story has progressed to now. Or for that matter if Telltale Games has added anything new in terms gameplay mechanics. This is supposed to be the episode that ends the big conflict and there is still more planned for Minecraft: Story Mode. That’s of course looking too far ahead and now we need to see if everything that has been coming to a head in this story plays out just as we expected. Here’s our review of A Block And A Hard Place.

Story

The whole gang is still taking in everything that happened last episode but have figured out just how they are going to take down the Wither Storms once and for all. It will require some great team works and some large amounts of trust but can they do it? Even as The Order Of The Stone’s true dark secret comes out and could change the face of this Minecraft world once and for all. I guess we need to hope Jesse has the right ideas and actions to take.

Hated

So far the entire season has been leading up to one major fight. We get to experience that now but it feels so very out of place. Almost like there really should have been one full other episode of Minecraft: Story Mode to have bridged the gap and given us more to experience before the end fight. It just feels like the writing in the game was very rushed or just “off” somehow. Again things just happened and we were more or less required to just go with it. Including a portion where one of the characters just vanishes and then shows up again without explanation. None at all.

Out of all of the episodes of we’ve had here for Minecraft: Story Mode most of the choices we made never really felt like they mattered. This was even more so here in this episode as I can’t remember a single choice that I had to make or dialog choice that had any real impact on the game’s story or outcome. Even the final choice for weapons and armor we make to face off with the monster is nothing more than a stat number at the end. It would have made sense to have the choice to keep your original armor to “honor” The Order but it be weaker or you use the new armor and have more health. It made no difference either way.

Loved

Finally in Minecraft: Story Mode Telltale Games has given us something a bit different in terms of gameplay in the game. It wasn’t much and could have been a bit more challenging but there were some fun puzzles mixed into non-guided sections of the episode. They did require a bit of attention to the fine details given out during some of the story sections or just background dialog to complete but that of course is a bit of the bonus here. Why we don’t get this more often in their other titles or other episodes of Minecraft I’ll never know but it is something that I wish we could get more of.

Overall

Just as with all of the past episodes of Minecraft: Story Mode there have been way more drawbacks for me than any kind of bonuses. Again this episode really didn’t seem to have much impact on the overall game in terms of choices. In terms of the overall title it concludes the biggest action point of the season so I am not sure where they will be going with the fifth episode that is in the works. So far everything has been very droll and boring so I still cannot fully recommend Minecraft: Story Mode based on the 4/5 of the game that has already come out. The final episode would have to do something insane at this point to fully change my view on this.

Minecraft: Story Mode — A Block And A Hard Place was developed by Telltale Games and Mojang. Minecraft: Story Mode — A Block And A Hard Place was published by Telltale Games for the PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One and PC on December 22^th 2015. A copy of the game was provided by the publisher for reviewing purposes.