Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy: The Telltale Series - Episode Four: Who Needs You (PC) Review

By Olivia Falk 17.10.2017

Review for Marvel

Telltale's Guardians of the Galaxy series has been a veritable rollercoaster ride of quality. Episode one was mediocre, two showed promise, and three rapidly caused patience to wear thin. Given that trend, episode four should be an improvement, right? Well, it is, but that doesn't mean it can't be sabotaged along the way.

Credit where it's due: the story and dialogue feel far snappier and emotionally-driven in this episode. There were moments that caused genuine chuckles, and others that could elicit tears from series fans. With Hala in control of the Eternity Forge (regardless of whether the player destroyed it in the last episode), the Guardians are quickly overpowered, and end up plummeting to what should be their demise. Luckily, the writing gods are on their side, and the crew winds up trapped in the depths of some ancient ruins. Escape involves a face-off with a bunch of hungry rock worms, but also serves to widen the cracks in the Guardians' relationships.

Focusing on the interpersonal conflicts of the Guardians is where the episode is at its best, but there's also a flashback scene to Drax's past that is both informative and touching to witness. Of course, it does suffer from the problem faced by all Telltale flashbacks: if you know the state of affairs following the event, the illusion of choice quickly becomes apparent.

Screenshot for Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy: The Telltale Series - Episode Four: Who Needs You on PC

At first, that line of thinking also carried over into the main story: "They're not going to get rid of any important characters; they'll want to give a happy ending!" was a common line of thinking. Thankfully, without going into spoiler territory, this episode makes it clear that it's possible for Peter Quill to run into serious problems with the people in his life.

There were quite a few noticeably pointless gameplay sections; a problem that has permeated each episode so far. Here, this amounts to QTEs that play the same scene regardless of whether you succeed or fail, and object interactions that frequently boil down to "click the thing, watch a cutscene of Peter looking at the thing, then click something on the thing and watch another cutscene". Absolutely riveting.

There's also some awful checkpointing at play. This came to a head in a puzzle sequence, where Peter was frequently forced to fly over an acid pool with a limited fuel supply; take too long, and into the acid he goes. While some players may figure out what to do immediately, others may find themselves dying repeatedly due to experimentation. If you fall into the latter camp, prepare to watch and listen to the same unskippable dialogue time and again. Don't worry, if it causes you to rage-quit for a while, you're not alone.

Screenshot for Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy: The Telltale Series - Episode Four: Who Needs You on PC

Cubed3 Rating

7/10
Rated 7 out of 10

Very Good - Bronze Award

Rated 7 out of 10

Frustrating gameplay aside, Telltale games are still primarily about the story, and episode four shows that it is possible to throw some interesting twists and turns into a narrative that seemed dead in the water. Getting to those points can feel a bit tiresome, and many of the connecting elements feel completely superfluous, but at least there's a bit of light at the end of the tunnel. Hopefully that light grows even brighter as the series comes to its conclusion.

Developer

Telltale

Publisher

Telltale

Genre

Adventure

Players

1

C3 Score

Rated $score out of 10  5/10

Reader Score

Rated $score out of 10  0 (0 Votes)

European release date Out now   North America release date Out now   Japan release date None   Australian release date Out now   

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