Game of Thrones: A Telltales Series recently just came out with their newest episode, episode 4: Sons of Winter. It’s available for PS3, PS4, Xbox One, Xbox 360 and will be coming to compatible with iOS devices via the App Store and to Android-based devices. I have just recently played episodes 1-4 on the PS4 and here is my review.
Story
The story is centered around the House or Forresters. Their house hangs in the balance as the house gets threatened by the Whitehills. The game takes place towards the end of season three of the HBO series, and end right before the beginning of season five. So you can say that it is a tie-in to the popular HBO series.
You get to play as five different characters of the House Forrester family, which are scattered in different lands from Westeros and Essos. Each character plays a large part in the story as each one attempts to keep the house from falling to the Whitehills.
Throughout the episodes, you do interact with some fan-favorites and not so fan favorite characters from the Game of Thrones series. You will see appearances by Tyrion, Cersei, Daenerys, Jon Snow and more. Each of these characters also play a large part in the story as they are more than just cameos but can also help you or work against you in the story, depending on the decisions that you make. Along with all new locations, you will also see some familiar territory as you will see places such King’s Landing and The Wall.
Gameplay
When it comes to a Telltale game, we know we all play it because of the great storyline. In this game, each episode has it’s own action sequences which have you using button combinations here and there. There isn’t much of actual playing time in these episodes that you will be doing but there is a whole lot of decision making that you will be doing which will determine what happens next in your story. Yes, I said “your” story because everyone chooses what decisions to make which will make everyone’s gaming experience a bit different.
As far as the consequences of your decisions go, each decision does actually seem to have a huge consequence to them. Though, I did come across a decision in which the consequence had me confused. There is a scene where you play as Gared, and the man that killed your family confronts you but Gared is instructed not to kill him. So as this scene played out, I made sure not to kill him by missing certain button combinations on purpose and choosing not to strike him lethally. When it came down to choosing between stabbing him in the arm (which I don’t think would kill anyone) and stabbing him in the chest, I chose to stab him in the arm. The scene goes on and you have to decide to stab him once again to kill him, kick him over a cliff or just leave him be. I chose to just leave him and somehow he still ended up dying. This was the one decision that I came across that didn’t quite make sense to me. Other than that, each consequence of every decision I made, seemed to fit the situation.
The game has a lot of automatic saving spots which is good, so you can just jump right back into the story wherever you left off. You won’t have to worry about going through a lengthy part of the story just to get back to where you ended. Speaking of length, each episode takes about an hour to a little more than an hour to complete. So if you were to add all of the series up so far, it would be about 4-5 hours of story and gameplay, ultimately equaling to about 7 hours by the time episode 6 is completed.
Graphics
Telltale is known to have it’s own style. Telltale does not go for realism but instead goes with more of a comic book like style. There are no bold outlines around the characters like you may have seen with Telltale’s Walking Dead series but the texture of the characters and the world are still there but more smooth. It’s the best looking Telltale game that I have seen so far.
Pros
- You get to play as several different characters.
- Most of the consequences of your decisions are crucial.
- Each episode is about an hour or more worth of story and gameplay.
- Game of Thrones characters make more than just cameos.
- Lots of automatic savings spots.
- Best graphics in a Telltale game.
- Only $4.99 per episode.
- Great story so far.
- You can play the story more than once and in will be different based on your decision making.
Cons
- One decision lead to a puzzling consequence.
- Not much actual gameplay.
- The button combinations seemed a bit too easy (usually consists of about two button moves).
When all is said and done, I think this is a game worth buying if you’re a fan of Telltale games or if you are a Game of Thrones fanatatic. I’m sure all Game of Thrones fans have pictured what they would do if they were in a character’s situation and this will be perfect for those that have. It has a great storyline and at only $4.99 an episode, the whole story (6 episodes) will come out to just under $30 and let’s face it, you can’t get many games these days for that price. You will also get to play it in as many different ways as you want.
7 fridges out of 10