Minecraft: Story Mode - Episode 6: A Portal to Mystery (Xbox One) Review

Minecraft: Story Mode - Episode 6: A Portal to Mystery kicks off with the band of heroes landing in a mysterious world with not the slightest clue as to what they should be doing. Coincidently, there's a floating book that they start reading; turns out they've been invited to a mansion just down the road. It's fairly good timing, though, as they were just moments away from beating eaten by an enormous zombie horde.

After arriving at the exquisitely designed mansion (and breaking in through a back window to avoid the zombie invasion), the group stumbles across several others who were invited; a range of YouTube's Minecraft superstars, such as CaptainSparklez and many others. After a brief introduction, a series of unfortunate events happen, which sets the plot of the episode - it's time to put on your detective pants and play murder mystery.

A Portal to Mystery has taken an odd turn when it comes to gameplay; instead of having a bit of a balance between drama, dialogue and action, it's completely focused on the dialogue between characters and figuring out what's happening in the house. This, combined with subpar voice acting, creates some truly cringe-worthy moments that really kill the mood that the episode makes a fairly good job of conjuring.

Featuring people from the community that helped give Minecraft its enormous success via YouTube is always a nice touch; however, putting so much focus on them isn't the best choice. If you aren't a fan of them on YouTube, you certainly aren't going to be a fan of them now. It gets worse, though; the voice over performances are fairly dull and no way near the quality of the rest of the Minecraft: Story Mode cast.

It's a concern that's been brought up in every review so far for Minecraft: Story Mode at Cubed3, and its ugly head is still appearing; the lack of consistency between Minecraft: Story Mode and typical Minecraft situations. Stuck in a room? Just break the wall. Nope, not here! Time to spend several minutes wandering around, hoping to accidentally solve the riddle/find the right door. Come on, Telltale, how has this not been addressed yet?