As the other reviewers suggested, the story is weak even compared with the other episodes. Dialogue choices and some situations are outright stupid. As usual, most choices are meaningless and you don't really have the power to change anything. This is a trait of all Telltale games and it's understandable to a point but in this game, it's handled very poorly and thus the emptiness of yourAs the other reviewers suggested, the story is weak even compared with the other episodes. Dialogue choices and some situations are outright stupid. As usual, most choices are meaningless and you don't really have the power to change anything. This is a trait of all Telltale games and it's understandable to a point but in this game, it's handled very poorly and thus the emptiness of your choices is much more obvious than in other games by Telltale.
The game follows the TV show's and the books' trend of torturing lead characters while constantly giving the advantage to the antagonists. While it is obvious that the world of Game of Thrones is very grim and unjust, it's quite frustrating to see our characters not be able to achieve any success at all despite the player's best efforts to make the right choices in the game. Not only are you unable to take your characters to a better position by making sound decisions, but the slightest success is always followed by the antagonists gaining the upper hand again and again and again...
(SPOILERS after this)
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Episode 5 had many scenes that really frustrated me either due to the story or the ridiculous choices I had to make. Right off the bat, in the first scene, Ramsay Snow gives you a blade, moves your hand towards his throat and dares you to kill him. Obviously, the choice is an illusion and Ramsay somehow dodges a blade that is perhaps a centimeter away from his throat. Why give us such a fruitless choice, Telltale, why?
After that, you have to deal with the traitor in your house, which is the guy whom you denied being your Sentinel in the first episode. There is a choice to spare him in return for information about and ambush. Again, a meaningless choice... I recommend that you just kill him because the information changes NOTHING.
The King's Landing part was so stupid that it made me cringe. Mira is given a task by Cersei to find out who will be testifying on Tyrion's behalf. Cersei's guard takes Mira to Tyrion's dungeon cell and listens to the whole conversation in case Mira tries to betray Cersei. The most obvious thing to do would be to wink at Tyrion to imply that something's wrong but of course, that is NOT an option. After a while, Tyrion figures out that Mira is sent by Cersei and the guard comes in to tell Mira that she screwed up... in front of Tyrion... The following dialogue is absolutels ridiculous. Mira has the choice to try and persuade Tyrion even though the guard already came in and blew our cover! Seriously, a preschooler could have written a more logical scene than this...
At Meereen, Daenerys backs down from her promise to give Asher some sellswords, no matter how well you performed the mission in the previous episode. This seemed very unrealistic to me as Daenerys values her promises very much in the TV show. I immediately remembered her quote: "Why should the people trust a queen who can't keep her promises?" Anyway, depending on some choices you've made, she may reward you with a chest full of gold bars. The gold really seemed like a huge amount to me, yet it changes NOTHING. It only gives you a couple of dialogue choices when Asher is trying to recruit pit fighters. You can recruit them just fine without any gold! In the end, Asher just sails off to the North with 7-8 fighters while he could have easily afforded an ARMY of sellswords with such a huge amount of gold. So much for rewarding players...
In North of the Wall, pacing is slow as usual. A few wights show up, some disagreement in the party, bla bla bla. Still not any closer to the North Grove.
And finally, Asher makes it to Westeros. He reunites with Rodrik in the most unsatisfying way. They don't seem like they've missed each other at all, especially considering how family should be extremely important in their dire circumstances. They don't even hug and act like they've only been away for a couple weeks instead of years. They're in an abandoned Northern port, and have walked into an obvious trap. Enemy troops almost appear out of thin air and their crossbowmen start firing arrows at the Forrester's paltry force. A couple of Asher's handful of men die, including the strongest one "the Beast". In the end, just when nobody thought the Forresters could get any weaker, you have to choose between saving either Asher or Rodrik, at which point I threw my wireless mouse on the ground in absolute frustration.
The Walking Dead series also had hard choices and situations where you had to make sacrifices but it was done right! The story, the characters and their interactions were so great that I really felt emotionally engaged. When the characters had to endure hardships, I felt symphaty for them. But in Game of Thrones, thanks to the combination of bland characters, sloppy writing, slow pacing, meaningless choices and zero rewarding, all I can feel at this point is frustration...… Expand
Game of Thrones: Episode Five - A Nest of VipersYour Score0 out of 10User Score
