Fresh off the last episode of Telltale's Game Of Thrones we have the third episode The Sword In The Darkness. There was a rather quick turnaround on this episode which is good but did the episode suffer at all from the speed or does it help keep us all engaged as the TV version of the franchise is coming back soon? Well we sat down and played through the latest episode of Game Of Thrones so you can gauge if this needs to bump to the top of the play list or you can leave it be for a little longer. Without more gilding the lily let us get into our review for Game Of Thrones: The Sword In The Darkness. It should be hitting a climax point here right?

Story

As is the case, we pick back up where the last bit of story left off with the Forresters. In Game Of Thrones timeline we are just at the wedding for King Joffrey. Most of you know what means. If not then we'll stick to the game's story here. Asher is still trying to rally an army to bring back home to save his family, Ryon is still held against his will be enemies of the family, The Wall is about to have a siege, and we are still trying to secure a deal for us in the capital. Things are not going so well for the Forresters and this is where we have to step in and help them make the hard choices in life or lose everything that they have. They really are just the Starks at this point though.

Hated

Maybe it is just me and not having gone deep into the Game Of Thrones books for some characters but it feels like some liberty was taken just to push the story for Telltale's Game Of Thrones. I am talking about characters that either haven't been cruel or back-stabby anywhere else, or have hidden it well before, have let their freak flag fly here. One of them has never seemed like a stark-raving bitch before but now all of a sudden in Game Of Thrones: The Sword In The Darkness she a total bitch because I took initiative for myself. Did the writers write themselves into a corner and where forced to alter character personalities just for the game? That is what it feels like and it bothered me to no end here.

Not only did they change the character personalities to fit in for their story but it also felt like no matter what the story was going to play out how the developer's wanted and not based on my actions. Most of the choices in Game Of Thrones: The Sword In The Darkness didn't seem to matter in the end or where placed out there in a way where you would have to actively violate any logic or actively choose self-destructive actions to further the story. What happened to having free choice in Telltale's titles lately? Everything is feeling forced and it was more so in this episode of Game Of Thrones. I am really missing the true choose your own adventure feel in this franchise and hope it comes back in future episodes.

Loved

While it was one of the forced feeling choices mentioned above, there was one action during The Sword In The Darkness where there was a major choice to be made to save one character or another. Both of which were extremely capable on their own so it seemed a bit odd. Low and behold though, no matter which was chosen neither just up and became hateful for you making the choice. You know, kind of like normal humans who understand hard choices need to be made. I loved that this was included in here as almost all other choices in all other titles beside Game Of Thrones. It felt like there was a bit of grey in the usual black and white choice scheme we are always given. We need more of this to feel fresh in my opinion.

Building off of that there also felt to be more choices than usual for the outcomes of events in this Game Of Thrones episode. While they all seemed to lead to the same end some events had around three or four actions you could take. If each had a different outcome this would have made more of an impact but at least it feels like Telltale is trying something. I blame the short turnaround on the episode for the limitations there but this was a nice little thing added in. I would love to see more of this as we progress further into Game Of Thrones and their other titles, just with more outcomes like we had at the end of The Walking Dead's most recent season.

Overall

Some have said that Game Of Thrones: The Sword In The Darkness has been one of the slowest episodes to date. I don't see that but it has been one of the more forced when we are supposed to have a bit of free range with our choices. It was a decent and more engaging episode so far but hardly enough to dictate that you should go out of your way and bring Game Of Thrones to the top of your play log. If you have a few hours to kill and have The Sword In The Darkness then it is worth continuing the story but there are so many other titles that can take a lead for now. It will be a great addition to the overall franchise but as long as the overall story of Telltale's Game Of Thrones doesn't deviate more, the whole package will require a top slot on the backlog soon.

I give Game Of Thrones: The Sword In The Darkness 37 gold dragons on the cash scale.

Game Of Thrones: The Sword In The Darkness was developed by Telltale Games and HBO. Game Of Thrones: The Sword In The Darkness was published by Telltale Games for the PS3, PS4, PS Vita and PC on March 24^th 2015 with the Xbox 360 and Xbox One versions on March 25^th 2015. A copy of the game was provided by the publisher for reviewing purposes.