Minecraft: Story Mode Season Two - Episode 4: Below the Bedrock (Xbox One) Review

What would have once been glorious cities and towns in their hey-day, have now been left to become desolate, barren wastes of lands. The reigning Admin, Romeo, continues his evil and dastardly ways by being left in charge of Beacontown while disguised as Jesse, while the group must traverse the Underneath to uncover many more secrets in relation to the Admin. Xara, Fred, and Romeo had each erected kingdoms that were representative of themselves, but since the friends' erupting feud, Romeo has left the three cities to fall into crumbling, depleted shells.

Each of the three kingdoms are polar opposites to the other: Xara's kingdom seems to be "science fiction" inspired, Fred's is akin to a small village filled with plenty of life, both in people as well as in greenery, while Romeo's kingdom is a war-inspired battle city. Unfortunately, there is not a lot of time spent in each of Xara's or Romeo's fallen kingdoms, and a great portion of the episode is spent wandering around Fred's village, trying to learn more about the former Admin.

Annoyingly enough, Fred's village houses a "Fred Trivia Contest" for a chance to spend the night in Fred's house. Then the "open world" portion opens up, as Jesse walks around town trying to figure out facts about Fred in order to win the contest. While this entire section seems like massive filler to pad out an otherwise short story, the trivia contest does not even matter in the end. Whether Jesse wins or loses the contest, he or she still ends up in Fred's house to continue the story, and, as such, the entire "fact gathering" portion can be skipped entirely in order to speed up the story.

This episode also contains a lot of fight sequences, while the boss fight at the end is a wonderful sight to behold. The urgency that was missing in the previous episode is definitely felt here, and Radar's character arc takes another great step forward. Starting as the shy and timid intern, Radar's character growth in the last episode and this has made him the most interesting character of the main group. Backing up the choices of the previous episode, Episode 4 is not without its own fair share of difficult, story-impacting decisions that further test the bounds of friendship.