Minecraft: Story Mode - Episode 1 - The Order of the Stone Reviews
A fun start, but there's a lot here to build on.
The story for the first episode of Minecraft: Story Mode is a little familiar, but it's solid and full of fun references to Minecraft lore. The puzzles are lacking, however.
[T]he story seems more like a prologue than a first episode. I believe it really could have been combined with whatever comes next into a longer first chapter, although perhaps I've been spoiled by the constant activity in the narrative-heavy choice-based Life Is Strange.
Frustratingly, the first 10-15 minutes of Minecraft: Story Mode - Episode 1: The Order of the Stone is extremely dull. It's trying to set the scene but just very little happens to the point of it almost being completely off-putting. It then goes from 0-100 in the space of roughly five minutes, and from that moment onwards, the player will be hooked and craving more. Bring on Episode 2!
A charming good time with some stressful, but not agonizingly life-threatening choices - Story Mode brings plot to the sandbox at last.
If you are someone who is really into Minecraft and understand a lot of the elements of the game, you are going to have a much better experience than someone who doesn't know a lot about the game. Even just seeing things like creepers, spiders, skeletons and zombies felt pretty cool just because I knew what they were and I could relate to how Jesse would feel in the game.
Telltale's new point-and-click adventure nails the Minecraft vibe but fails to fill its world with memorable characters or much humour
Minecraft: Story Mode gets off to a decent, but flawed start with Episode 1. The series is definitely going to be a more family friendly affair than its Telltale brethren, but not quite enough was done to accommodate the more mature gamer. Future episodes could help, but for now it is best to be wary, while still diving in if you appreciate the universe.
The way that Telltale takes advantage of Minecraft lore to form its own narrative is intriguing and will delight fans of the original game, but what the studio is doing with this new story isn't doing much that will excite anyone else.
Minecraft: Story Mode - Episode 1: Order of the Stone is a lacklustre start to Telltale's latest series. While it's certainly not bad, it's not exactly good either. A great performance from Patton Oswalt and some fun sequences aren't enough to cancel out the wonky pacing and bland narrative, while the ensemble cast mostly falls flat. This instalment is inoffensive enough, but it never really provides enough for you to latch on to. There's still plenty more to come, of course, but the jury's still out.
Story Mode – Episode 1 hits or misses with its characters and presents a relatively anemic plot for later episodes to build on; less immediately captivating than its predecessors, yes, but Telltale has set out to find the perfect blend of action and heart – they haven't found it yet – but in later episodes they just might.
There is some hope for this series to be great in the future, but The Order of the Stone is just okay. The Minecraft-specific gameplay is a nice way to shake up the usual formula. The blank slate of the universe allows the tale to go wherever it wants. The voice cast is full of actors who can do great work. But the writing needs to be more engaging if Story Mode wants to be taken seriously among Telltale canon.
Mechanically you are left with a feeling that there was room for Telltale to - finally - stretch its template a little further than its standard 'side with one character or the other' choices. And if it didn't do so here, with the most open-ended licence going, then it may never. Like all recipes, if you have tried the end result too often then its taste may wear a little thin. But for lapsed Telltale fans or young Minecraft aficionados, Story Mode's opener is an enjoyable first bite.
Minecraft might not have a story and lore of its own for Telltale to build upon, but that just means that a Telltale story can fit right in.
There's an echo of this sentiment in the sweetly childish tones of "Minecraft: Story Mode," a game that uses the mimetic architecture of storytelling to produce nodes of contemplation and self-inquiry. It's a subtle and sweet work made with an awareness that the best part of a journey comes when you realize that you are the story.
Minecraft: Story Mode's first episode gives a clear baseline for seeing where the plot is headed, but the questions it leaves are predominantly on a gameplay front — not the sort you want staying with players. Will the point-and-click elements take greater hold over story sequences that currently dominate? Will quick-time events continue to be a predictable response for every point of conflict? Will player actions feel more and more pointless than they already do? On the matter of how enticing the episode is at building interest in the one to follow, Episode 1 does its job...but not expertly. It's very tame in the gameplay department, and players will find it a shallow experience as a direct result of the contrived design choices. It's enough to put the entire project in jeopardy, ultimately making this introduction a fragile start for the five-part series.