After being introduced to the Michonne-centric story in Episode 1: “In Too Deep,” our The Walking Dead: Michonne review takes a look at Episode 2: “Give No Shelter” as Telltale continues to unveil the story of Michonne’s past. This review will look mostly at the story, as gameplay, graphics, and sound are mostly consistent with the first episode in this three episode series.
Story
As with the Episode 1 review, we’ll try to leave this relatively spoiler free, but we will assume you’ve played the first episode already. Before we start though, check out the Episode 2 trailer:
The Walking Dead: Michonne – Episode 2: “Give No Shelter” picks up where “In Too Deep” finished up, with Michonne, Pete, and Sam being held captive in Monroe. The action starts off pretty quickly with the trio trying to escape the floating colony, and Randall giving chase. In typical The Walking Dead fashion, the episode starts out pretty action packed, then mellows out a bit as the middle section takes us on another trip down memory lane as Michonne tries to remember and figure out what happened to her two daughters before the action picks back up for a pretty big “OMG” moment towards the end of the episode.
Of course Michonne still kicks ass with her machete wielding throughout the episode, and we even get to mutilate a couple of zombies to create Michonne’s trademark “zombie escort” near the beginning of the episode.
The story does a pretty decent job of balancing Michonne’s badassery and inner turmoil, as her past and present blend together at times. While trying to figure out what happened to her daughters in her past, Michonne seems to feel obligated to ensure Sam remains safe. The sequence in the middle of the episode which plays out as more of a detective sequence with very little action was well done, with blue-ish overtones to the graphics and artwork that add to the sense of despair and unknown that Michonne is experiencing. Maybe it’s because I’m a dad, but I could definitely relate to Michonne during this flashback scene. A few notable quotes stand out in this episode as well from the various characters including “Killing someone changes you…” to “Walkers are trouble, people are worse,” and finally “The past always seems to find you…”
Oh, and one more thing. I think this episode definitely contains one of the goriest deaths I’ve ever seen in a video game recently, Telltale is definitely doing a great job with The Walking Dead universe here.
At the end of the episode, you’re left with a pretty big — and tough — choice to make, one that I’m tempted to replay later and see what happens if I choose a different path. We won’t say what it is though, we’ll leave that up to you to find out when you play through this episode…
Gameplay
I know I mentioned we’d mostly be covering the story at the beginning, and while the gameplay is pretty consistent with the first episode, it seemed to stutter a bit more than the previous episode. While it didn’t affect any of the action sequences, at times the brief stutter was just enough to detract from the story flow.
The second episode — like the first — was also just too damn short to put it bluntly. This episode took about an hour to play through, and while the story carried it I do wish it would have been longer. Of course the good part is you can easily play it in one sitting. The bad? You’re definitely left wanting more… it’ll be interesting to see if Episode 3 will be able to wrap up the story in an hour or if Telltale plans on extending the length a bit. We’ll just have to wait and see.
Wrap-up
Despite a few more gameplay hiccups with stuttering, and another very short episode, the story definitely sheds more light into Michonne’s past and leaves us wanting more. Episode 3 can’t come soon enough to see how the story wraps up in The Walking Dead: Michonne.
[rwp-review id=”0″]*We were sent a review copy of The Walking Dead: Michonne – Episode 2: “Give No Shelter” on the Xbox One for the purposes of this review.
Last Updated on March 31, 2016.
