The second episode in Telltale’s second Minecraft season begins right where the story left off, with the Admin’s appearance at Beacontown. Episode Two: Giant Consequences takes the story in an unexpected direction with Jesse and his gang being forced to save the world from eternal darkness. The major story beats were good, but it is becoming apparent that this is one of Telltale’s weaker series.
Early on in the episode after Jesse “defeats” the Admin during his attack on Beacontown, we see that the giant colossus is just a construct and not his true form. After reappearing and plunging the down into darkness, he tasks Jesse with becoming his champion and retrieving a massive clock that controls the time of day. This adventure to the Admin’s palace and getting the clock is the bulk of Episode Two.
For the most part, searching the palace was a letdown. It looked incredibly imposing on the outside and would have made a wonderful location to explore, but unfortunately much of my time spent was solving a few puzzles in a couple of rooms and then hitching a ride on a minecart during a cutscene. I didn’t exactly expect to be able to explore the entire castle since this is a Telltale game, but some more freedom would have been nice, especially given the possibilities with such a large structure.
What interests me more than the story is the relationships between the characters, such as Jesse and Petra. Last episode there was already some tension between the two as Petra was keeping secrets from Jesse and doing business with the leader of Champion City, Stella. This time, Petra is again hiding things from him, but for reasons that are a little more personal. She just isn’t sure of who is she and what she’s meant to do in life, like how all of her friends have already discovered for themselves. She wants to set off with Vos and Jack on great adventures, but this hurts Jesse when he is kept out of the loop. To me, this conflict is much more interesting than whatever is going on with the Admin and his mysterious gauntlet.
Once again there are quick time events scattered throughout Episode Two, but much of its combat centers around actually moving Jesse forward to attack and dodge blows. I understand that Telltale wants to make fighting more dynamic, but this makes it dull and tiring. Surrounded by skeletons, I can slowly walk forward to strike a few times with my sword before rolling out of the way of an arrow. It’s rinse and repeat from there on out, and the slow-paced nature of it makes it much more boring than the energetic fight sequences in other Telltale games, even if they do happen to rely on quick time events.
Like the previous episode, Giant Consequences ran fairly well with no noticeable lag or detrimental performance issues. Telltale may be stepping up their game when it comes to performance considering I also noticed that their recent Batman series did not have many problems either. The graphics and gameplay in Minecraft don’t exactly seem like they should be taxing on the engine, so it’s nice to see that hopefully Telltale has worked out the kinks in the Telltale Tool. Fingers crossed that it stays this way and doesn’t regress.
One thought that looms over Minecraft: Story Mode’s existence is that it just doesn’t live up to other Telltale games. The company usually visits properties with a vast wealth of lore and narrative content, but those aspects are absent from vanilla Minecraft. Or at least, they aren’t present with the same depth and magnitude. Minecraft: Story Mode is about as close to an original Telltale IP as you can get as of now, and it’s hard to get invested in the larger story aside from a few characters’ personal arcs. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed this episode and like the characters well-enough, but it doesn’t pull me in the same way as other Telltale series do.
Summary
Giant Consequences delivers an unexpected plot twist, but overall it falters where it should shine. The combat, while an admirable attempt to make it more interactive, makes for slow action sequences and clunky gameplay. The mystery behind the gauntlet and Admin is interesting enough to keep my attention, but I’d honestly like to see more conflict between the characters like what Jesse and Petra are going through. It’s still early in the season, so there’s time for Telltale to correct course by the next episode.
Jennifer is a games journalist, former games journalist and PR Manager at Gearbox. They contributed 234 articles to ICXM between 2015–2017, focused on opinion pieces, game reviews, Windows and PC, and Xbox news: went on to write for Windows Central and later managed PR for Gearbox Software.