Breaking Down The Episode (In Sheep's Clothing)
Yeah , university was a b!tch to me today and I had to wait till 3 am in the morning to get my hands on the episode only to get a playthrough and study for a lesson at 9 am . No sleep for me . Well , sleep is for the weak anyways . So , enough with the introduction . I am so hyped and "mad" about some things that I just had to make a post . Forgive my copy-paste please.
To be completely honest , I think we all started the episode hyped and that means a lot . Personally speaking,I think that one of the reasons episode 3 was very good is that episode 2 (with all its flaws) managed to keep you hyped , especially when you discovered Crane's obsession . This is exactly how positively pre-determined I was when I started playing episode 4 .
First things first , I said once that I did not like Collin re-appearing , mainly because of the fact that he would consume time from the episode, however TT really surprised me and his appearance was quite funny and not time consuming at all (well if you count out the 20 year c*ck blocking record) . As far as the first "chapter" is concerned , I think a Rating of 9/10 should be the lowest of all ratings .
Then you get a phone call that Nerissa is waiting you in your office . The scene was well built , but I think it was a bit rushed . I mean its late in the night and both are acting like someone is chasing them . You should be able to speak more , try different dialogue paths , fail and retry , just to give the sense of time . Other than that , the scene was perfectly fine . Rating : 8.5/10 at least.
After speaking to Nerissa , you are headed to Beauty-Beast's appartment , where you go through facts , etc , etc . This is where the episode started to drop in terms of quality . The scene was allright , but I really felt that I had to go in room A , speak to douchebag X and Y , gather information from the selfish person I was friendly to before ( I guess -I helped Beauty I don't know what happens if u told beast the truth-) . Now , I am a bit too harsh on Beauty-Beast but they had that attitude in the comics as well till one point . I was really shocked in the last scene were they tried to ask me to kill the crooked man thinking I am a murdering monster myself , but I was disappointed that I could not tell them straight in the face how selfish they are considering all the other fables suffering . Generally the scene lacked the passion I was expecting . Rating 7/10
Then , we are given a choice to go to either the Butcher's shop or the Lucky Pawn . Just to be honest with ourselves , we all knew that A) we would visit BOTH and 
It wouldn't matter at all . I chose to visit the Butcher first , wishing for some action . Even I did not get the action I was expecting , the scene was nice , well made while it also made a significant progress on the storyline . I felt a bit bad however that the only person you speak with is a shaking frail old man . I was really hoping that he would attack me with a butcher's knife while I was moving through the meat . Some sort of a crazy Butcher . Rating 7/10 .
Finally , you get to visit the lucky pawn . The scene was very well made , the jersey devil was fantastic . So was the fighting . Probably the second best part of the episode . I want to make a 2nd playthrough in which I will choose to go to the Lucky Pawn first just to see what Jack is up to . Rating : At least 8.5/10.
After visiting both places , you return to the Business Office to speak with Snow/Bluebeard/Todd/Mirror/Buffkin . I liked the interactions , but I wanted to search the place a bit rather being forced to run to the Washington Bridge . I wanted to check on Faith's coat , the new tarrot cards , the books , maybe have a word with the mirror / buffkin / snow . However the scene was fun , but definately not as great as it could be . Rating 7/10.
Finally , we come to the worst part of the episode . Its ending . It felt completely rushed . I don't know why TT was in such a hurry to finish the episode . I literally don't feel that hyped about episode 5 . Could be my own opinion however . Rating 6/10
Duration Rating : 6/10
Final Verdict : 8.3
It is a good episode with great momments , but could be so much better . The length is a disaster. I really think that we should start talking about increasing the game duration , not decreasing it . The ending was worse than every other chapter of the series . On the bright side , there are 3 excellent chapters to make up for it .
Comments
I agree with you on pretty much everything. Overall a good build-up episode, but the ending was not the cliffhanger I was hoping for; made the episode seem short, which for me was only 70 minutes. But that's about what they've been at for this whole game.
Good breakdown. Yeah the Jersey Devil was the best part for me. He was awesome!
Yeah . The jersey devil was extremely well made . His model / his voice / his character , everything
I feel like we're just settling for an okay game except for the last of us what's been that master piece game. Where it's wasn't just okay and fine but was great giving you excitement. These games are only as good as there worst episode. 1 to 2 month wait times for shorter episodes makes them feel less significant. I feel like once the real nex gen games start rolling out telltales games will be over looked
I'd give the Lucky-Pawn scene a 9.5/10. If you go there first, you get to have a conversation with Toad, who's trying to sell Faith's coat, have another conversation with Jack and explore the shop a little and Jersey gets to say a little more before the fight starts. This has no downside, as the butcher-shop scene stays equally long (there are some other dialogue options only). So I recommend going to the Pawn-shop first, as it prolongs the episode by at least 5 minutes and raises my overall rating to 8.8.
Somehow I always manage to make the game decisions that cause me to miss interactions with Jack, and it's starting to make me sad, because he seems like an awesome character.
I was thinking exactly the same think . Jack got away from me twice . But to be honest , a "good" detective would think going to the Butcher's shop first , because unlike Lucky Pawn , it is not well known . In Lucky Pawn there are people coming in and out where in the Butcher's shop everything is better concealed . So I guess I will stick with the Butcher's shop being the first choice
People were saying that the crooked man being the killer would be too obvious and he clearly is.
Pacing-wise, I was kind of glad that I made that decision, because that was close on the heels of me sort of promising Snow that I would do things more "by the book", and it would have felt weird if I went off and almost immediately got into a life or death fight with the Jersey Devil. I liked that fight better in the latter part of the episode, because it allowed Bigby more time to realize just how deep this mystery goes, so that the fight is more meaningful in building tension going into the series climax.