The Walking Dead: Michonne Episode 2 Review

Michonne’s tale continues with Episode 2 of TellTale’s The Walking Dead: Michonne. Does this second chapter flesh out this zombie slayers’ personality, or is this series better off dead?

The Walking Dead: Michonne Episode 2 Review

Taking place immediately after the events of Episode 1, Episode 2 spends its time showing a Michonne on the run. Having to deal with a band of thugs, walkers and her troubled past, the game sets out to give this heroine a hard life. The trouble is, she still doesn’t have a foil to bounce off of. Unfortunately, the cast and crew of characters are either unconscious, one-dimensional or (spoiler) killed off immediately. Unlike the large band of survivors in the show/comic, there just isn’t a community here. Even Michonne is given the short end of the stick here, with the majority of her backstory told in flashback sequences and hallucinations. Granted, being an episodic miniseries means that there is not a lot of runway to work with, but the first season of The Walking Dead game series shows that TellTale knows a thing or two about world building.

In addition, the general tone of the game is all over the place. The first two-thirds of the 90 minute episode is full of slower moments, with lots of one-sided conversations and the aforementioned flashbacks. However, the last third of the game is downright brutal, with Michonne doing a complete 180 and going all Rambo on the world. It’s an interesting dynamic, but it feels unevenly paced, like the game doesn’t know what direction to take.

Of course, being a game means that there should be, well, gameplay. The Walking Dead: Michonne Episode 2 does have the choices, quick-time events and point-and-click interactions TellTale is known for, but things are far more linear this time around. Other than one brief segment that lasts less than 10 minutes, most of the game plays out like an interactive TV show. The Order: 1886 was almost universally panned for this lack of control, and it is not a welcome site here.

This is made worse with the lack of choice that Michonne actually has. Most dialog choices are a variation of the same thing, with silence literally breaking the script in certain scenarios – characters will oftentimes say something out of context when done so. There is one seemingly big choice you can make near the end of the episode, but time will tell if it will make a difference come the next episode.

The second episode of The Walking Dead: Michonne seems like a step back from the original episode, as well as its source material. Its miniseries format is just not proving to be conducive for a fleshed out tale where your choices matter. Hopefully Michonne will pull through and wow gamers and fans alike come Episode 3.