Perhaps because Minecraft: Story Mode is positioned to wider audiences, the choices here aren’t as dramatic, dark or as morally challenging as Telltale’s previous efforts. Which makes it a lot easier to appreciate this new adventure series by Telltale Games.
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The other problem with Story Mode is that the titular story never really gets going in this first episode.
Minecraft’s blocky appearance remains firmly intact, and when it comes to its characters – from a leather jacket-wearing rival gang out to sabotage your Creeper stature, to cute pig sidekick Reuben whose bacon needs saving – you can be surprised at how much emotion you can pack into a handful of pixels.
Where Story Mode shines is when parents and children play it together. Once the story mode is done, sooner or later, the full mode of Minecraft will be available next. It offers a creative space in which to play but, until now, didn’t have a story.
Wii U gamers will even see the game come to their system – a first for the Microsoft owned property.
On top of this are several action sequences, including a minecart chase and building scenes which are handled simply as QTE events. You certainly can’t argue that the game doesn’t emulate the look and feel of Minecraft though, even if the mechanics are completely different.
Telltale’s Minecraft: Story Mode takes the ridiculously popular open-world survival/crafting/whatever game and slaps on a story that is both respectful of the franchise, and loose enough to not become too narrow.
The classic pixelated graphics of the original game are still there, but they’ve been enhanced a little, with the characters and environments appearing a little more animated and alive.
If other titles are any guide there’ll be two to three months between each download, so the next one isn’t expected this year.
Telltale is a leading and award-winning independent developer and publisher of games for every major interactive platform from home consoles and PC to mobile and tablet devices, and is the pioneer of the episodic delivery of digital gaming content. By successfully developing games as an episodic series and frequently releasing in the format of a game season, they create longer consumer engagement than traditional games for each release.
Story Mode closely follows the guided narrative structure of its Telltale predecessors, while the original Minecraft’s open-ended open-world gameplay is largely treated as a backdrop.
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Again, these are pretty straightforward, handing you a limited number of recipes and letting you decide what you need to escape the situation, but there could be a few interesting puzzle-solving potential in future episodes. Building segments are very basic.
