REVIEW – After about thirty minutes of completing the episode, I already write down my thoughts. Mainly three aspects flicker around inside me: this was short; it’s better than the first episode; was my final decision a good idea? I’m still in trouble. I don’t know how to rate this Telltale episode…

So I didn’t have a good opinion about the first episode. Same goes for the second one, despite being better! There’s still something on the other side of the scale. Michonne has done a lot in a small time. Let’s get into details then…

Escape

Thankfully, Sam’s character improves a lot towards becoming a good partner in this short episode. Previously, she wasn’t sympathetic in my eyes, but due to some teamwork, we were able to escape from this… abNormal ship (sorry, sorry, sorry for that terrible pun!). However, there will be a few combat scenes until you get off, though. I have something to point out here.

What the heck is the point of the black borders? In the case of The Order: 1886 and The Evil Within, they made some sense. Here? Nothing at all. TWD: Michonne isn’t a technological masterpiece to abuse the PS4‘s power! It has no effect on the gameplay and in my opinion, it just looks dumb. What was the devs’ aim with the borders?

Shelter

Michonne, Pete and Sam are found by Angry Joe Randall and his team, Sam gets shot – we end up at her house, we patch up her wound, and then another serious flashback happens. Michonne still has a weak mental state, and this flashback expands a bit more on Michonne‘s story about her children disappearing.

While the episode slows down a bit after the powerful start, it picks up the pace again right here with this… hallucination I think. We get out of it, though. I wish we haven’t, because deaths happen yet again. Unfortunately, the shelter for us is anything but that – wherever we end up, some people end up biting the dust either because of us or we kill them directly.

Can’t be saved

Angry Joe Randall gets a bigger role towards the end of the episode, and I’m curious to see how my decision at the very end will affect the finale at the end of April. There have to be a few choices that end up altering what Telltale shows us. I could just mention what these options are, but I don’t want to spoil. Let me say instead how long Give No Shelter is. If you take out the staff roll, the recap of the first episode and the teaser of the third chapter, you end up with sixty minutes on your clock! Oh, my dear God. I thought that the first episode was quickly complete, but Telltale went even shorter than that here. Meanwhile, the latest Minecraft Story Mode has, at least, two hours in

Oh, my dear God. I thought that the first episode was quickly complete, but Telltale went even shorter than that here. Meanwhile, the latest Minecraft Story Mode has, at least, two hours in store with its fifth episode. Sure, you can bring up that The Walking Dead: Michonne is a mini-series, but I don’t give a mini-damn about it. I only had just one discover and interact with things gameplay segment in Give No Shelter. Just one! If I had to describe what I just played, it would be a quick painkiller. No more than that. What a damn shame…

Almost

Animations end up flawed here and there; loading times seem to be a bit longer than usual, plus this episode is ridiculously short. It’s not terrible – and that is why I give it a 7/10 -, but this is still not enough. Unless Telltale creates something amazing for the finale, the Michonne mini-series end up as recommended only for The Walking Dead-buffs, because it’d get a 6 or 7 out of 10 for the entire three episodes. Let’s face it: that is not something that we got used to from Telltale of all the developers out there, right?

I still don’t believe that this is all I could see. I only recommend buying this episode if you like Telltale’s games. Otherwise, just get something else. Or wait until the price drops.

-V-

Publisher: Telltale Games

Developer: Telltale Games

Genre: Episodic action-adventure

Release date: March 29, 2016 (PS4, PS3)