Telltale's latest interactive story marks their first foray with a Marvel property, and it's somewhat fitting it could be Guardians from the Galaxy. In the end, Telltale is becoming so skilled at collecting licensed properties to create games about maybe they ought to change their name to Taneleer Tivan. This new tale provides some pleasant surprises by smartly blending elements from both Marvel's movies and comics featuring the Guardians, while going back to Telltale's own roots some with regards to gameplay and weighty decisions. Still it carries most of the issues seen in newer Telltale games, though, as Marvel's Guardians from the Galaxy is plagued with bugs, glitches, and inconsistent writing.
The first episode begins with the Nova Corps once again begging the Guardians for help. Thanos, the Mad Titan, isn't looking for Infinity Gems this go around, but instead is following a Kree artifact known as the Eternity Forge. No one knows what power the Forge would bestow, exactly, however the proven fact that Thanos is after it means it is definitely something which ought to be kept away from him at all costs. Thanos isn't only one who has eyes around the Forge, however, among the last remaining Kree within the galaxy, Hala the Accuser, sees it as a method to enact revenge on Thanos for pushing her people to brink of extinction.
Marvel's Guardians from the Galaxy is an interesting venture. Much like its Batman series, Telltale will quickly step outside what's perceived as canon either in Marvel's comic or movie universes with this particular property and tries to forge its very own iteration of those characters. In doing so, the team throws off a few of the potential creative shackles from pre-established canon, like how they use characters and organizations such as the Nova Corps, Yondu, The Collector, Hala, and Thanos. For even a casual Guardians fan, this had all of the parts needed for an epic space adventure, and it was a mostly fun one, too. Telltale could capture much of the humor and light-heartedness from the Guardians successfully, and utilized each character pulled from Marvel lore for their fullest.
There was a cost with this creative freedom, however, also it emerged quickly. Operating outside of known canon meant this adventure couldn't stand as well on its own, adding problems like having to lengthily explain many of the universe since pre-established backstories and encounters no longer necessarily apply. Constant flashbacks into character histories, and even a section that explores how the Guardians first met up, often derailed the pacing from the adventure. Just if this felt as if you would hit a fascinating payoff for whatever “B” or “C” plots that particular episode from the series had introduced, you were derailed by yet another scene of Star-Lord camping with his mom.
These flashbacks also felt like desperate attempts at fleshing out characters who border on being somewhat flat to start with, since the Guardians' dynamic and appeal relies so heavily on the group as a whole being polar opposites of one another. Telltale's writing was at its finest once the group was together and arguing like lunatics. When they inevitably were separated at various points in each episode, the lengthy exposition that will soon follow came off as weak-a problem that's often seen in other Guardians from the Galaxy related-media as well.
The writing also suffers from a lack of consistency, an element that has become more and more evident as Telltale's games have become popular. It has led to the organization continuing to keep up a breakneck pace to satisfy a once-high demand. Area of the means to fix this really is multiple writers working on different episodes. What ends up happening is drastic shifts in tone from episode to episode that can be jarring, particularly when you marathon the episodes when the entire season has been released like I do. Other types of this include callbacks to previous episodes, which often feel tacked on and unnatural. It provides the sense these were put in late, shoehorned into a chapter that might've been being worked on at the identical time as the one before it.
What Guardians from the Galaxy does well, though, is help Telltale return to its puzzle-solving roots. A lot of its newer games have shied away from allowing players to really move around a great deal on the planet, and instead all the action has been increasingly heavy on quicktime events. While you may still find a good amount of QTEs here, you also get some time in Star-Lord's jet boots and get to walk around ancient Kree temples and other places in the universe as you try to determine some puzzles. You will find an elevation element, where Star-Lord has to fly in certain rooms to reach potential clues.
The other major gameplay facet of Telltale games is, of course, making choices. At this point, everybody knows each choice you are making could possibly affect gameplay, and that i think Guardians did a stellar job at providing branching paths, particularly from episode three onward. There, you've one major decision that causes an extreme shift and can lead directly to a variety of characters living or dying. In fact, I triggered an ending that only 5.9% of other players received according to my choices. With no, that doesn't mean just that 94.1% of other players got a different ending. You will find multiple endings and results according to whom you befriend and just how each situation becomes resolved. It was the first time in quite a while where it felt like my choices really had some weight having a Telltale game.
Of course, it was when the game was in working order. Personally i think like I'm beating a dead horse every time I review a Telltale game now, however their engine, the Telltale Tool, hasn't aged well. And due to it, it seems like each subsequent game the company attempts to make has more and more intricacies by using it. Some are comical, like Star-Lord's weird speed-walking animation. Why not let him bust out into a run? Other medication is annoying, but not even close to game-breaking, like NPCs at the Knowhere bar blinking in and out of existence in the background of the scene with characters talking. But then you will find others which are unforgivable.
One glitch nearly managed to get and so i couldn't finish the game. In chapter four of episode three, before you are making that aforementioned big branching decision, all the Guardians meet with a new friend to discuss how they'll proceed going forward. Regardless of what choices you make, the sport will glitch here and also you can't speak with the people you'll need in order to trigger a cutscene that moves the game along. You will be stuck, forever, unable to speak with anyone, waiting for a scene which will never happen. I reloaded the checkpoint half-a-dozen times, even returning through my conversations before that moment hoping another path would resolve the glitch, but with no success.
This is a bug that Telltale is comfortable with, is present both in PC and console versions from the game based on some digging, and that still hasn't been patched even since episode three's release at the end of August. Luckily, during my digging on the internet, I had been able to find that completely quitting from the game after which starting support from the last checkpoint should resolve the problem also it did. Anytime a bug requires you to definitely restart your game or your system, though, there's clearly some technical shortcomings that should be dealt with, and hopefully, what with all the changes going on currently at Telltale, that ends up happening later on games.
Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy: The Telltale Series is not Telltale's best work. Like the majority of of their other recent projects, its engine is really showing its age, and it is dealing with in which the games are almost unplayable at points. The writing for Guardians is also clearly handcuffed by wanting to do different things with an established property, rather than working in pre-determined boundaries, and wound up causing more creative problems than solutions in the long run. Having said that, there are plenty of touching and even humorous moments in this particular series, showing Telltale's writers were built with a strong grasp from the material. Having the ability to explore the planet and walk around as Star-Lord was also a nice throwback to earlier Telltale games, instead of the more quicktime driven ones from recent years. Still, you'd need to be a pretty big fan of Guardians from the Galaxy to occupy your gaming time with this particular one.
