The Walking Dead: Michonne - Episode 1: In Too Deep Reviews
The Walking Dead: Michonne is supplementary at best. It's a sidestory that fills in a brief gap in a much bigger narrative. There are hints of more interesting things to come, but as of the first episode, this is far from essential for either fans of The Walking Dead comics or Telltale's other episodic games. It's a diversion, and not a great one.
The first episode of "The Walking Dead: Michonne," serves up nice production values and a strong protagonist that commands attention. At the same time, it lacks the tension and suspense of the debut episode of Telltale's first Walking Dead game, which should be a strong point for a story-driven game based on a horror-survival series. With the setup out of the way, let's hope this new series steps up its game and freshens up its familiar story-adventure formula in the following episodes.
Michonne travels the apocalyptic world, never staying in the same place long and never letting false promises of security get in her way. She never gives in to threats and faces adversity head on, which makes for a promising adventure.
Michonne is a fascinating character, and one that makes for some interesting storytelling. Unfortunately, the first episode of her tale loses steam after the first few minutes, and boils down into something that feels like it's been done before.
All things considered, The Walking Dead: Michonne is off to a decent start with plenty of room for improvement. Most of the new characters may feel like zombie fodder, but they've got some interesting personalities that will be fun to follow.
Though some new ground is tread, the first episode of The Walking Dead: Michonne doesn't bring much we didn't already know to the front.
Despite the burdens of a slow opening and short length, The Walking Dead: Michonne Episode 1 - In Too Deep expands on Telltale's established methods in clever ways, and delivers a promising start to the franchise's first miniseries.
A well-written character in desperate need of a plot more compelling than this laboured retread of the captured-by-authoritarian-jerks Walking Dead staple.
Telltale have a written a compelling start of a trilogy that manages to immerse you without tweaking the formula.
More of the same just isn't good enough.
The Walking Dead: Michonne feels like twice the amount of well-worn territory than Telltale series typically deal with, and much of that comes from its existing within a property that is reaching the ceiling of its dramatic potential.
The Walking Dead: Michonne - In Too Deep is a strong opening chapter, but the overall experience doesn't stray too much from past seasons. Future episodes will prove whether Michonne has an explosive payoff or is simply an average mini-series for passing the time.
To be fair, it's standard Walking Dead fare from Telltale. There isn't much of a difference, and to those who didn't read the graphic novel, and don't know what happened to Michonne during her disappearance from Rick Grimes' group, there isn't much to be said here.
In Too Deep is yet another solid addition to Telltale's growing portfolio.
It denies the player a blank slate through which to make their own choices. Michonne is in a strange space between brand promotional piece and a true season of The Walking Dead game. However, all of that said, the compressed three-episode nature of Michonne could be to blame for that, and only time will tell if the full work coheres into something more than the slight thing we have in the first episode.
There are hints of more significant and interesting narrative arcs to come - ones that will hopefully play out in the coming episodes, with Michonne's own past being one of these - but with how haphazardly the rest of the characters' narrative arcs have so far been handled I'm a little wary of the outcome.
The first episode of The Walking Dead: Michonne is a fun, interesting journey into the psyche of Michonne and how she handles a new violent group of survivors.
This brief journey into Michonne's world of The Walking Dead has begun with a promising start and has the potential to be an extremely good game, exploring mature themes but maintaining a good degree of tension. Telltale have well established Michonne; now they need to show us just what she is capable of.
Will you enjoy In Too Deep if you liked Telltale's other The Walking Dead series? Absolutely. Does it stand up to our expectations based on the previous series? Not really. A Walking Dead game in shape and form, Michonne just lacks the tension in atmosphere and decision making.
New cast, new story, new creative team - just what The Walking Dead needs.