The Walking Dead: Michonne - Episode 1: In Too Deep Reviews
The premiere episode of The Walking Dead: Michonne provides a combat-filled experience that will please fans of both TellTale Games and The Walking Dead.
True to its title, The Walking Dead: Michonne - Episode 1 is all about one character, somewhat to the detriment of the story and other characters. Michonne is so well done, though, from her impressive survival skills to the hollow look in her eyes, that she easily carries the entire episode. Even though I wasn't invested in the story, I did care about Michonne — everything she said, every walker she killed, and what will happen to her moving forward.
After a dull start the tension amps up, resulting in a promising-but-rocky beginning
One of The Walking Dead's most mysterious characters has a story to tell, though it's similar to one we've heard before.
In Too Deep isn't bad, nor does it fully suggest that The Walking Dead: Michonne will be a letdown. But if this helping was any indication, it would appear that splitting this side game up into an episodic adventure was a bad idea. As a first episode, this lays the groundwork for the rest of the game, but it doesn't find the time to do anything else significant as well. Hopefully Michonne's journey picks up some steam next time, but for now you'd probably be better off waiting for the whole shebang to assemble itself.
The Walking Dead: Michonne is off to an excellent start, bringing back all the tension and emotion that we have come to expect from the highly regarding series.
Michonne's main problem is sadly the most inescapable one: she's in yet another fucking zombie story.
Given it has no ties (at least that we've seen yet) to the previous seasons or to what may come, for now the title has the potential to be something intriguing and different from the usual The Walking Dead experience, though whether it's solely a diversion until the proper Season 3 remains to be seen.
At this point I'm starting to tire from the Telltale formula, especially when it doesn't provide a cast of memorable characters from the get-go, but Michonne herself was enough to power me through the episode and keep me interested. In Too Deep hasn't topped either season of The Walking Dead so far, but if you can still stomach a few empty "remember" prompts, you'll enjoy the story they're trying to tell.
I'm still kind of let down that the core gameplay remains mainly unchanged over the years. Telltale is great with character choices and delivering a striking painterly color palate, but all of that can grind to a halt since the hacking and slashing gameplay feels repetitive, especially compared to last year's adventure breakout Life Is Strange. Telltale is still the king at what they do, making the active conversation in a game feel tense, urgent. I just hope that's enough for the remaining two episodes of The Walking Dead: Michonne.
The Walking Dead: Michonne Episode 1 is a very rough start for an extremely promising series. Pacing and story issues abound, and the feeling at the end of the 90-120 minute adventure is that it was all setup with no true payoff. Whether that payoff comes in future episodes will determine if this is a worthy successor to the excellent series.
Michonne is one of the TWD's most fascinating characters, and her mini-series deserves to be more than a retread of well-known territory
The Walking Dead: Michonne "In Too Deep" is easily one of the shortest episodes to be released and won't take you long to complete, but Michonne is an intriguing character and she has a lot of emotional baggage. Seeing how she will develop in the next two episodes is enough to make you want to come back for more. Those who decide to jump into the game will likely have experienced Telltale in one form or another; the gameplay remains the same as previous TellTale experiences and occasional lag unfortunately creeps back in.
In Too Deep suffers greatly from an over familiarity with both post-apocalyptic worlds and Telltale's own formula. If not for Michonne herself, this would be a truly disastrous start to the latest entry in this partnership.
As much as this is a miniseries spinoff for Telltale's TWD series, this is also a spinoff chapter in the life of Michonne. It's inconsequential. Nothing that happens here can impact this established character in any meaningful way, so Telltale has to work from a template.
As far as gameplay goes, if you've played anything by Telltale then you know what to expect: a story-driven game filled with dialogue choices, quick time events, and a bit of exploration.
This won't create any new fans of the series or bring anything extremely different to the foray, but it's still a solid first start to a 3 part miniseries. I do hope the other two episode play out just a little longer than the 90 minutes this lasted, but otherwise, I'm definitely down for the next episodes.
As the first episode of a new series, In Too Deep is a very strong start. The gameplay formula isn't any different from past The Walking Dead games, sure, but Michonne is a great character and the story has the potential to be very good. Unfortunately, the first episode has no real story payoff, due to how the whole series is structured, so it will be Episode 2 and 3 that will make The Walking Dead Michonne great, or just another adventure game based on a popular franchise.
In Too Deep is a stepping stone to introduce Michonne that detrimentally plays it safe. There aren't any advances in Telltale's formula or notable sequences that we haven't seen in other forms before, but the miniseries can be a cut above its predecessors if it takes advantage of the brutality and moral centre of the protagonist by embroiling her in more memorable confrontations with both the infected and the living.
"In Too Deep" gets The Walking Dead: Michonne off to a rocky start, with the introduction of uninteresting characters, a drab story, and a flat ending. Yet the exploration of Michonne's past and her emotional demons is fascinating, and offers much potential for the future.