Review — Minecraft: Story Mode — A Portal To Mystery

Minecraft: Story Mode

We sit down and review Minecraft: Story Mode — A Portal To Mystery. This is the sixth episode of Telltale’s take on Mojang’s famed franchise. Here’s our review on how they did

The story continues for Minecraft: Story Mode as we have the first episode in the expanded adventure and the sixth episode in the epic tale of Jesse and his crew as they do what is apparently done in Mojang‘s world. If you are somehow still behind the times though this also expands on the story that Telltale Games has been building up for us over pretty much a year now. I’m still confused as to why they didn’t go a solid second season and just have all of this is part of it but they didn’t Now let us dig into this new episode of Minecraft: Story Mode before we get bogged down with even more of their great stories and such. Here’s our review.

Story

Jesse and crew have hopped into yet another portal and this one looks to be grim. In fact, it looks so grim that they are surrounded by nothing but the roaming dead and a creepy castle to get into. Sadly, the real horrors and mystery kick off there as it seems that other players in the Minecraft have met and are getting killed off one by one for a mysterious reason. Reasons that all get wrapped up but mysterious none the less. All for the team to be able to continue their quest to what I assume is to get home.

Hated

The biggest selling point for fans of Minecraft in this episode was the fact that real world players of the game were used to voice the extra characters in the story. Not just normal players but some of the more prominent Twitch players of the game trying to bring their personalities into Minecraft: Story Mode. Sadly, at least for me, this all fell really flat as I had no issue pissing all of them off with my choices just to keep my crew happy. All of them felt disposable and unneeded in the long run and it kind of made the story get bogged down instead of bringing anything positive. Maybe it was the fact that I knew none of them would carry on to affect things after the story.

On top of all of that, the story was rather predictable throughout the whole thing. The big reveal at the end as to who was killing everyone off never felt like Clue where it could have been anyone but more like just following the carrot until the big underwhelming reveal. Maybe I caught clues way too early on but if that was the case then they were too prominent to make this feel like a real murder mystery. That is what this episode was supposed to feel like and it really just was paint by the numbers here. I know that Telltale can do better and this was just a letdown.

Loved

It may sound odd here but this episode of Minecraft: Story Mode did make it all feel like I could take Jesse into a better leadership role than before. This could be linked to my selection of choices that all helped out my crew and none of the NPCs when available but I think this is something that was supposed to be built up since episode four. He never truly stood out but I know that is where he was supposed to be. Here it truly shined and I hope to see that continue. That felt like the normal progression for the character and I was glad to see that come through here. If only it didn’t take so long and be based on the fact that every other character didn’t feel like a “throw away.”

Overall

Sadly, it does not feel like this expanded adventure for Minecraft: Story Mode is off to a good start. This is only the start of the new adventure and the teaser for the next episode does look like it all picks up a bit more, so there is hope. This episode just felt like it was a grab for attention based on putting in some of the big players of Minecraft proper only to use them as disposable characters in the overall scheme. That is always the case when it comes to guest stars that are there for more than just a cameo. Based on this I can’t recommend this episode for anyone who isn’t in for the long haul already. This is not a way to start things off and I’d be very let down if I started just here.

I give Minecraft: Story Mode — A Portal To Mystery 1 Dead TorqueDawg on the Dead TorqueDawg scale.

Minecraft: Story Mode — A Portal To Mystery was developed by Telltale Games and Mojang. Minecraft: Story Mode — A Portal To Mystery was published by Telltale Games for the PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One and PC on June 7^th 2016. A copy of the game was provided by the publisher for reviewing purposes.