Review — Minecraft: Story Mode — Access Denied

Minecraft: Story Mode

We sit down and review Minecraft: Story Mode — Access Denied. This is the seventh episode of Telltale’s take on Mojang’s famed franchise. Here’s our review on how they did

It looks like we are heading toward the end of Minecraft: Story Mode‘s expansion season as now we have the seventh episode of the game out now. Telltale Games has been doing their best with the franchise and giving us an entertaining story based on the blocky world of Mojang. We’ve been covering all of the episodes so far for Minecraft: Story Mode with some hits and some misses and now is the time for us to go through the most recent one. We’ve played it and now is the time for our review of the latest episode just for you to take right in.

Story

The story continues as our team makes their way into a long portal chamber and can’t seem to find the one that leads back to their home world. There seems to be an infinite number of them and now the team thinks they found one that could at least help them find their way home. As with all of the other worlds out there, this one seems to have a huge issue that the Order Of The Stone need to help fix after initially making it worse. This one just happens to have been taken over by a crazed AI that wants to make them all “Useful.”

Hated

I may need to check the actual times on the episodes but this one certainly felt like it was the shortest of all of the episodes to date for Minecraft: Story Mode. Not in a good way but it felt like things were almost over from the start and quickly wrapped up. Especially when it moves over to the cost to time ratio out there. In fact, it seemed like the opening credits for the episode just started it all instead of having a nice little intro then the credits. Almost like they couldn’t stretch things out at all and still make it all feel right for the IP so far.

Going hand in hand with that it also felt like all of the choices we had to make in this episode were again nothing that would alter the game in a major degree or have any lasting effects. Be it because most of the other characters you deal with have no mind and no memory of the actions you take or be it because they just were not that harsh or truly important on the grand scheme. Maybe this is all setting up for a huge payoff in the final episode but so far I have been made to care less about the choices made as the characters in Minecraft: Story Mode have already not shown so far.

Loved

It was short and felt like it didn’t have lasting effects on the overall story but it was fun to see a new twist on the same kind of story we’ve seen in many other games out there. I was sure we’d see some form of crazy AI in Minecraft: Story Mode at some point and here it was. But the little bit of humor and story actions we could take made it feel less cookie cutter and a little more “new.” Hopefully that makes some sense to you as it is a story told so many times already but here in the Minecraft world it does make sense and the changes made it worth my time.

Overall

Sadly, this was another weak episode for Minecraft: Story Mode in my eyes and it almost feels like a struggle to get to the end of it all. If the final episode makes it all pay off I can see how this one was needed but it feels like filler just to get to that end. As with many of the other episodes in this run I would say to still hold off on it all until we see how it all ends. Just like a good anime, the filler isn’t always the best but when you get to the finale after a strong-ish opening it can pay off insanely well. I’m still saying that you should hold off but that is all my thoughts and opinions know what Telltale can do with other IPs already.

I give Minecraft: Story Mode — Access Denied 1 Paradox on the Paradox scale.

Minecraft: Story Mode — Access Denied was developed by Telltale Games and Mojang. Minecraft: Story Mode — Access Denied was published by Telltale Games for the PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One and PC on July 19^th 2016. A copy of the game was provided by the publisher for reviewing purposes.