There will be characters you love that die horribly. This is a Telltale Games adventure, and more importantly, it is Game of Thrones. So I acted counter to the way I’d been playing the character up to that point.Ĭharacters created solely for the game have no such plot armor, though, and it is easy to get attached to them. There is no way they are actually going to let me kill Ramsay or even hurt him. But when presented with the choice to pull a knife on Ramsay, I’m again pulled out of the game a bit. In the north, many of my decisions started to paint the picture that my hero was proud, but impetuous, and prone to making bold, aggressive moves to defend his family. Moments like these take me out of the game I’m actively making decisions based on what I personally know will happen rather than what the storyline should be guiding me towards.
But I know that jumping in with him just prior to Joffrey’s wedding might not be the best idea. It feels obvious that allying yourself strongly with Tyrion Lannister against his sister makes sense. Unfortunately, the story gives too much influence to some of the ASOIAF core characters and ends up robbing the game of some immersion.Īs a fan that has read the books and watched the show, I’m inclined to make decisions counter what should make sense to the characters in the moment. Sounds like they scored on the character front, right? In general, I would say yes. So we have likable heroes, despicable villains, and some cool fan service. He crops up in person a couple of times, but you can feel his influence in most of the scenes that take place around the Forrester stronghold of Ironrath. At the end of the day, though, no main series character’s presence is more felt than Ramsay Snow. Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen have smaller roles to play in their respective arenas. Margaery Tyrell, Tyrion Lannister, and his sister Cersei have fairly significant roles to play in the King’s Landing portion of the tale. The fates of the Forrester siblings also bring us in contact with a handful of the core ASOIAF characters.
In general, though, they are easy to dislike and really make you want to root that much harder for our down-on-their-luck heroes. Any more evil and they would be twirling their mustaches. There is little “grey area” where they are concerned. Their rivals, the Whitehills, are a little over the top in their obvious villainy. The family itself is generally likable all of the characters have very distinct personalities, but generally come across as “the good guys”. Much like their liege lords, the events of the Red Wedding cause a massive shift in the status quo and send everyone careening on a path that puts the future of the family itself in question. The Forrester family live in the north of Westeros as bannermen to the Stark family. How well do you empathize with the characters? How much influence do you have with the story? Is the story itself compelling? How well can you immerse yourself in the world and the narrative? These games really live and die based on a couple of key things. The major story beats will always happen pretty much the same way, but some of your choices will ripple down the line. The main focus is on telling a story and letting you make choices along the way that nudge the story one way or another. That’s what this “game” really is at its heart it is what its producers do. It is still a good game, and worth playing through if you are a fan of Game of Thrones or this type of interactive storytelling. They certainly give it a herculean effort, but in the end, I think there are a few too many missed beats that make it inferior to Telltale Games previous efforts.
I loved what they did with The Walking Dead license could they pull off the same magic again? It is a tall order, but one that the team was generally up to. Telltale Games specializes in dialogue-driven adventure games with a large cast of characters. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire has plenty of sword fighting and fantasy elements, but the real star has always been the fantastic characters and interplay between them. Game of Thrones and Telltale Games seem like a match made in heaven.
Game of Thrones by developer and publisher Telltale Games-Microsoft Xbox 360 review written by Jeff.