REVIEW – When I said in the review of the second episode that the finale must get its act together, I was serious. Michonne’s story was below average for the first two episodes, not worthy of being part of a Telltale title. Thankfully, the third, last episode kicked things into a different gear.

So I finished the second episode by keeping Angry Joe Randall alive because I not only like to take risks with multiple things (especially when there are exciting moments called deadlines, oh boy!), but also because I wanted to see how it could affect the story.

Cemetery

One of the key segments of What We Deserve is going to be Sam and her will to bury his deceased father properly. Having lost a second family member in a short time, she’s obviously in a weak mental condition (not as weak as Michonne, though), so we must make one or two decisions about her.

Fortunately, she doesn’t lose herself entirely, as proven by her preparations of having a stash of weapons. We must prepare for a fight. But wait, who’s going to fight who, and why? The slow start is present yet again, but the game picks up from the part where we start to hand out weapons to the crew (except for the Fairbanks kids, although we can teach something to one of them about guns). The episode needed some pumping action, but I never understood why it started with a memory on the ship…

Even more abNormalities

Norma gets a significant role in the finale. After preparing everyone for the worst, we get to the point to get ready to give Angry Joe Randall back to his team (if we left him alive), plus we can also see our old teammates from the ship again. Not a long time until we get to gunfire, although Norma initially tries to make herself look like harmless, but don’t believe her. Again, we see these cinematic looking black bars which rather look extremely retarded in my opinion, then bam, bam, bam, a few people dies. Of course, the walkers hear the noise, and they turn towards the Fairbanks stronghold.

Norma tries to apply suffocation to Michonne‘s forehead (Water! Apply directly to the face!), but eventually, things turn for the worse for her. The episode starts to be solid by this point, and in fact, it becomes even more powerful. (The situation will change big time after that long loading time, which might only have been something dumb on my end, but who knows?)

Mental war

As we’re back in the house again, everything falls apart around Michonne. The house starts to burn, and so does What We Deserve (in a positive light, however). The mental war is going yet again, and we must fight our demons yet again – it keeps stomping on us until everything breaks apart around us. The final decision, that damn final choice.

You are not real, get the f_ck away from me, the house will fall on me. But no. It keeps going. I must go, I am serious! This is what I missed in Michonne up to this point: the game felt boring and empty, but this scene was stunning. I felt something similar in Life is Strange the last time when I played an episodic game.

…?

Sixty-one minutes after launching the game, I ended up seeing my final choices. I was disappointed that the retribution didn’t go all the way through; we didn’t get to see Rick and the crew in the game. Michonne just… walks away into the emptiness, giving the game an unfinished feel. Telltale hits the jackpot, but it’s too late. There shouldn’t be graphical errors, and there shouldn’t be a few second freeze when one of the characters said “Shit” – something didn’t feel right. Telltale will need either an evolution, a revolution or they will fade away. I expect serious improvements for the third season because Michonne felt like an empty bullet.

I give the stuff two ratings – the one at the end of the review is about the whole game. The one I give to this episode is coming right up: What We Deserve had good, but not great points, so I give it a 7/10, the whole mini-series get only a six. Buy it if it costs less than ten bucks. Bye.

-V-

Publisher: Telltale Games

Developer: Telltale Games

Genre: Episodic, adventure

Release date: April 26, 2016 (PS4, PS3)