Survive The Walker Apocalypse In ‘The Walking Dead: Michonne’ – Review

Released on February 23, The Walking Dead: Michonne is the latest in Telltale Games’ line of point and click, choose your own adventure games. Rather than following the last two seasons or the tv show, The Walking Dead: Michonne takes place between issues 126 and 139 of the Skybound comic series. Unlike earlier seasons and series, Michonne is only three episodes long. So how does it compare to Telltale’s other series? With a resounding meh, that is.

The game, graphically, looks fantastic. Even though Michonne keeps the same comic book-y, cel shaded aesthetic, something about it just seems better and it looks like it flows smoother. Granted, the only title I have any experience with on PC is Game of Thrones, it just seemed like it had a nicer presentation. There weren’t any graphical glitches or texture pops like I had experienced with Game of Thrones. What I did like is that some of the quick time event scenes were constructed in a more cinematic fashion. It made these scenes feel more than just a scene from a video game.

All the voices in the game range from good to decent. There wasn’t any character whose voice I ultimately didn’t care for, except for one. Unfortunately, that one happens to be Michonne. who just happens to sound so lifeless. Occasionally, she had decent sounding dialogue, but, for the most part, her lines come across sounding like they are spoken too fast and extremely monotonous and boring, devoid of emotion. For me, this negatively affected my enjoyment and ability to get into the game, because if the main character doesn’t sound like she cares, why should I?

The game plays exactly how Telltale’s other games play. You play one, you’ve played them all. One thing I’m a little disappointed about, though, is the combat. Combat is done exactly like every other series, through a series of quick time events. What I wish they would’ve done would have been to bring the combat sequences from Minecraft Story Mode over and maybe refined it a bit. For those that haven’t played Minecraft Story Mode, in addition to quick time events, there were also segments where you actually went up to an enemy and had to attack them with your sword. Bringing this to Michonne, would’ve given the game a little more variability in it’s gameplay and might’ve made it a little better, more satisfying perhaps. I love Telltale’s output, but I feel like I’m starting to feel fatigued with it’s gameplay, similar to how I feel with the Lego games. Minecraft Story Mode, with that bit of combat, felt like a breath of fresh air compared to this. It also doesn’t help that, as a whole, I felt the Minecraft Story mode was better acted and better written.  Also, this episode is short (my completion time was just under one hour and twenty minutes), which was weird since, while playing the game, it seemed long. Maybe because, as opposed to the usual six chapters per title, Michonne has seven or eight. I would’ve at least liked to have actually hit the one and a half hour mark.

So, is The Walking Dead: Michonne worth it? If you are a fan of the comic series, yes. If you are a fan of Telltale’s games, yes. Just wait for a sale, which shouldn’t be too hard since it seems Telltale games go on sale shortly after release.
The Walking Dead: Michonne is available for Playstation 3, Playstation 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Steam, and Android and iOS devices. Episode 2 is due for release on March 29th.