The Walking Dead: Michonne – Episode One Review

April 13, 2016

Telltale Games has been busy as of late, with their Game of Thrones, Tales from the Borderlands and Minecraft:Story Mode series wrapping up in the past few months. While we wait for the release of Telltale’s The Walking Dead: Season Three, the studio has given us a three episode mini-season revolving around Michonne, who is arguably the series most interesting character.

Michonne: Episode One is set during a time when Michonne left Rick’s group to do some soul searching and deal with the demons of her past. Although Michonne is set in the comic book universe, the game’s art-style and story line serves as the perfect link between the comics and the TV show.

The opening sequence has Michonne dealing with zombies in her present while flashing back to the early days of the zombie apocalypse. As the story progresses, Michonne finds herself sailing with a crew of people who receive a distress call over the radio. When Michonne and Pete, the ship’s captain, go to investigate they end up being captured and taken back to the floating colony of Monroe.

Telltale have elevated storytelling in video games. There’s an argument to be made that The Last of Us (Naughty Dog) wouldn’t be what it is if it weren’t for Telltale’s first season of The Walking Dead. When I played through another Naughty Dog offering, Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection, I noticed that the cinematic sequences are interspersed with repetitive action sequences – story point, beat up/shot bad guys, rinse and repeat.

Michonne, like Telltale’s other games, avoids this style, keeping things short and sweet. Michonne utilizes Telltale’s typical point-and-click game play. There are also moments where the characters are given the freedom to let loose (usually in the final chapter), and these stand out that much more. In Episode One, there was a bit of machete swinging (Michonne is without her katana in this episode), but I assume more is to come.