MCSM S2 EP1 - My thoughts
Well, I finally got around to playing Minecraft Season 2 Episode 1 after my long break.
To summarize, for people who don't want to read too much: "I thought it was a good opening episode, and picked up where the last one left off pretty well, handling and explaining events that happened during the time skip. While there were good moments of friendship, humour, and character development, I don't like where the plot is going concerning the "big bad" of the season.. It's too meta for my taste (at least concerning this series.) Hopefully they can get me interested in the future."
Now, for more bits:
- Telltale has expanded their Jesse repertoire. Why? Because why not. Cool how there's a bunch of different skin tones now, to keep up with all the colours of people. But, I stuck with my Male Jesse #2 skin from the previous season. The dark-skinned, black shirt one.
- I thought that the opening credits had really good music. Soothing, calm, other synonyms like that.. It really set the tone for the location we were in.
- There was a cool selection of new characters. [Despite how much I like Ashley Johnson,] I didn't like how prominently Petra was featured here (probably because I didn't like how her character was behaving), as I'm more for the Axel+Olivia side-characters train. Wish they appeared a bit more so far. But, we are getting Lukas next episode so... we'll see.
- Radar is cute. I like him as an Intern/Sidekick/Assistant. (Though, not when he's rambling on about something. He's only cute whenever he's amazed or excited.)
- I don't like Olivia's new voice. Shame how the previous actress didn't want to be in this season (or whatever the implications were...) But, I'll probably et accustomed to this new one eventually.
- I don't like how bright the outside sections are. I know that's because of the engine upgrade, but a lot of things seem so clean and vibrant. It emulates Minecraft in 4K!!! too much... At least in my own personal opinion. The first season looked a lot like "Normal Minecraft" as far as I can recall what "Normal Minecraft" looked like.
I ADORE this new building mechanic Telltale has added. Adds a whole bunch to the Minecraft building feel to the game. Makes sense, and I hope we see it sometime soon, later in the season.
-- The one (or two) downside(s) to this building system is how it's implemented in the game. Telltale's point and click system does not help with pinpoint accurate block placing. And I guess using a controller makes it even worse. The sticks aren't sensitive enough, so when I move one, I need to move it pretty far to see a change on screen of the cursor. Usually It moves a bit too far.
-- The way the game saves the creation is a bit worrisome. (either that or my game glitched). I had built this cool statue of an adventurer in a cave with one knee on a rock, and a torch in his hand picture #2 here But, soon after, I had misjudged the situation of choosing a pig a Rueben on a float, and ended up choosing no one. I regretted it, so I went back to the main menu and reloaded the episode [I knew the game saved right after I finished the statue]. But, once it loaded, I had finished the statue... but there was no statue there. The game knew I had made something, but I could not see it. So, in fear that my statue would forever be invisible, I restarted the episode. Luckily, I wasn't too far in, but that visual glitch had me worried so I just redid it. And I think I did a good job of recreating it. Anyway.....Much like Guardians, there's that attention to detail of choices. Some have no effect on the course of the story, but are still cool to have. Like the slime dive here. You have a choice before jumping of what cool dive to do. Does it do anything for the plot? No. But Telltale still made those options.
- Telltale should really rework Jesse's Idle face. Because this does not look normal. He's terrified.
- I really like Jack's voice, and his character in general. An adventurer who's seen many cultures and much of the world, but after the loss of his two friends, he was broken. I like the regretful, worrisome, actually scared angle they gave him at the temple. Shows he's human just like the rest of the people. And gives a "don't meet your heroes" vibe concerning Petra. wonder how she'll feel about him not being Epic all the time?
- I also really like how you can choose the armour again. I made the decision of choosing the dark blue+black one with nibs on the shoulders in the previous season. The one that looks like Gabriel's armour? I didn't like it in the long run. It didn't seem to fit with my Jesse's look. This time I picked the Shield of Infinity. Purple-ish+Blue+and a bit of Green (I think?) Looks much better than the last armour I wore.
- I don't trust Vos that much. You ask who he is in the cage.. he responds with: "A Friend". He claims to have survived off of porkchops
when he was stuck in a cage (and I think he was stuck for a while). And he seems totally fine when he gets out. He's got some ulterior motive, that's for sure. - More puzzles in a Telltale game! Yay! (only problem being that they're pretty simple. I had that prismarine door one solved in just a few seconds of looking at it. But, this is a kid's game after all.)
- I found that by the temple part I was a bit worried by the music. It seems like it didn't know what it wanted to be. When diving under the water and getting into the temple, it was a good synth, deep pop kind of like being underwater. When the Cthulhu statues (yes that's what I'm calling them) croke through the door and attacked us, the music started some sort of jazz-y tune. I did not like that. I also found some section (I think when breaking into Stella's vault---attacking route) the music was not what I expected. So.. hope the music has some sort of cohesion to each location.
- The ending song was a nice touch. It started out like the previous season's credits song, but broke off with those lyrics and different tune. It was interesting.
--- Now, the one main problem I have with this season so far is the antagonist. It's a big jump from the last season's big bad, and I feel that this one's too meta.. based on the fat that there has been no "meta-ness" so far in the series. Knowing that there's this "Admin", this "God" that wants to kill us and we'll have to face up against so suddenly worries me. Minecraft Story Mode, to me, was a way of experiencing one possible world of many, with no "outside interaction" of any kind in a Minecraft setting. Something that used the mechanics of Minecraft, but not the community aspects of it. No servers, no popular Youtubers (though look where that went last season.. I did sort of like it even though I didn't get any of the jokes.), no all-knowing-all-creating GOD [---so, real human person]. But here we are. From a revenge plot gone awry to a meta-physical being who has created the entire world is what we now face. Big jump. This is now sort of like *"The Lego Movie" Lego people live in a world where they do their own thing, but it turns out they live on this big table of a city in the basement of a guy. But, I was fine with that. It was all set up accordingly, and had a nice payoff (Emmet becoming a Master Builder after seeing the "world as a model"). But here, after we've had one season where the characters felt like actual characters.. even the Youtubers were people in the world and not users on a computer. Seeing this happen is strange. I'm with Jack on this one. Admin? --ROLL MY EYES.--
We'll see if Telltale can get me on board with this plot later on. Hopefully they do, because I'm in this season for the long run, given that I got the season pass.
Comments
I agree that the main villain is way too meta and not very interesting. I found the plot and the new characters to be decent, but the hubs, the customization, and the action scenes were where I really enjoyed myself.
Your views basically mirror mine
I made the order amulet with the new building mechanic
Not trusting Vos is a fair enough call but fyi a stack of porkchops is 64 and standing still in minecraft makes your hunger go down really slow I suppose it's a possible feat, I did wonder why he wasn't a tad crazy but I assume it's becuase it's a kids game
Anyway I didn't like Vos in the game
I do have to agree with the admin thing being to weird and I really hope it doesn't turn out like the lego movie ending becuase to me that ending sucked.
However I'm content to let it play out, maybe it won't be tacky and ruin the characters and maybe the admin could be Soren