The Walking Dead

We sit down and review The Walking Dead: Michonne — In Too Deep. This is the first episode of Telltale's take on one of The Walking Dead's fan favorite characters. Here's our review on how they did

When it comes to some great storytelling The Walking Dead graphic novel is one of the best. When you look at video games the first name that comes to mind is Telltale Games. While they have been no stranger to telling stories in The Walking Dead universe they have yet to tackle anything that is directly affecting to the story of the graphic novel. That is of course until now as we have The Walking Dead: Michonne that aims to bridge the gap in time from #126 to #139 where the titular character is absent in the story. That is over a year's worth real word time that she was gone and now we get to see why as we dive into The Walking Dead: Michonne — In Too Deep.

Story

Shortly after one of the best story-lines of The Walking Dead, All Out War, the dust has settled and the world is a bit different. While the communities are looking to settle back into normalcy Michonne chose to go off on a walkabout to "find herself" again. It was definitely needed after all of the Hell she went through. One thing leads to another and she finds herself as part of a boat crew heading out into the sea to scavenge and all sorts of other survivor-like things. Of course that is when things go south again, as they always do, and Michonne and crew find out there is yet another group of survivors out there that they need to deal with. Sadly their introduction to them did not go so well.

Hated

In the first two version of The Walking Dead that Telltale Games put out there all of the visuals we done in such a form that the whole world felt drawn like the comics. It was one of the things I fell in love with then. In The Walking Dead: Michonne though there is more dimension to the whole world and it doesn't seem to have the same feel that they nailed so well before. This was something I was looking forward to given the fact that it is based directly from the comics and not just based in the universe. That was part of the grand appeal before to me and now it seems a bit lost to show us that the artists can do something else. It could also be linked to the color choices and maybe a "Play it in Black & White" option should be given to us in an update.

While I understand where the character is in the story of The Walking Dead: Michonne here having read the comics since inception I see that many who haven't would be at a huge loss as to what the character has gone through. It would have been nice to have a small and quick refresher because Michonne is represented as a bitch here more than someone who is smart and had to deal with a lot of things up until now. Even the TV show has yet to cover some of that and for those people who are not full up on the comic lore all of her responses, even the 'positive' choices, come off as she is just rude and not a strong woman who is still dealing with A LOT that the world has handed her. More or less just some of the true darkness should have been given in a recap at the beginning of The Walking Dead: Michonne is what I am saying.

Loved

As a huge fan of the comics and Michonne in general I think that Telltale Games perfectly captured, and to that point so did Samira Wiley, who the character is and perfectly captured her from the pages to the game. Even all of the dialog choices fit perfectly into what I thought she would say in the situation based on current mood. Nothing seemed to deviate from her personality just to fit and option and gameplay need which I am sure was tough to do. They nailed it on the head as what I would expect to have seen start up right when Michonne took the hiatus from the comic book pages. I am so excited to see where it goes.

On top of that it looks like Telltale took another note from past titles and mixed them into The Walking Dead: Michonne to help build the character along. At the point we meet her in the game she is still 'snapping' from all of the horrible events from before. I figured that these would just be handled in terms of very 'out there' dialog choices but instead they were worked into just the exploration and QTEs of the game. I don't want to spoil but some of the cracks even show up when just looking around and it makes you start to question anything that you are seeing in The Walking Dead: Michonne when from her perspective. Amazing choices and I hope it keeps up as we press on.

Lastly the music selections for The Walking Dead: Michonne here were so well selected and placed in the game that it quickly made this mini-series jump to the top list of games that Telltale has made to date. It is usually such a little thing but here they hit the tone and mood of each song used so perfectly I didn't want those scenes to end. Most of those scenes being some revealing credit sequences at that. Usually something that most of us would skip over or take the chance to grab a snack but the choices were perfect that I was enthralled and I am sure that you will be as well. Usually such an under-used element and Telltale Games stepped up and knocked it out of the park.

Overall

If you are a fan of the story being written in the comics at all then The Walking Dead: Michonne is totally worth your time and money. Even if all you know of the character is based on the TV show I would still go out and read a bit of the issues before these events and give the mini-series a try. It isn't fully out yet but it has started off at an amazing pace. If they can keep it up then The Walking Dead: Michonne will quickly solidify itself in one of the top three of their games for me. Top two if they give us the option to play the game in gray-scale at some point to get the true feeling that we are in the comics and not in a one-off of the franchise.

I give The Walking Dead: Michonne — In Too Deep 5 'Number One Mom' mugs on the mug scale.

The Walking Dead: Michonne — In Too Deep was developed by Telltale Games. The Walking Dead: Michonne — In Too Deep was published by Telltale Games for the PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One and PC on February 23^rd 2016. A copy of the game was provided by the publisher for reviewing purposes.