Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy - Episode 2: Under Pressure

Under Pressure keeps the story flowing and the jams pumping as Telltale provides a rare look at one of the Guardians’ upbringings. The hit-or-miss humor and standard technical malfunctions are still on full display, but the strong storytelling helps keep the season moving forward as the dysfunctional space crew keep searching for answers.

Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy: The Telltale Series - Episode 2 is another great episode from the developer. It's better than the first episode in a lot of ways, but still has troubling technical problems that detract from the fun.

Under Pressure transitions us off of the high-tempo radio hit that was the season opener and into a more relaxed slow jam punctuated with some meaty action riffs. The slower drip of meaningful events meant I didn’t come off of it with the same level of feel good euphoria I had after finishing Tangled Up in Blue, but Telltale is still doing an excellent job adapting this eccentric hero team to its tried-and-true format - particularly when the focus is on developing the characters and the relationships between them.

In ways both positive and negative, Under Pressure is more of the same for Telltale's Guardians of the Galaxy. The relationship-focused decision trees continue to be interesting yet opaque, while the interactive aspects leave much to be desired in terms of quality and player engagement. I've knocked down the gameplay score (and thus the overall score) a tad to reflect both its stagnation and lack of creativity, but there's still room and time for improvement.

Wrapping up, Under Pressure continues the Guardians' adventure quite nicely. It lacks a little of the thrilling action that peppered the first episode but compensates with a tighter storyline and good narrative. In short, this episode fulfils all the check marks of Telltale and is a fairly good time for Marvel fans.

Episode 2 manages to deliver far more impactful sense of decision-making (and consequences) than what we saw in the first episode.

By the ending cliffhanger, Guardians creates enough of a mystery with the Eternity Forge--specifically the process and cost of using it--to segue into the next episode. Emotions run high, and that works well for Rocket's story as well as the conflict between Gamora and Nebula, but other pivotal choices seem like overblown drama between kids instead of a ragtag band of heroes. It lacks action and big reveals, but it sets up a lot of different avenues to potentially explore down the line.

An oddly-paced episode is made up for with a deep characterization of the Guardians of the Galaxy, further supplanting the series as a character-driven comedy adventure game. With an unclear look into where the future lies, the next chapter could make or break this series.

Ultimately, while Guardians of the Galaxy: The Telltale Series: Under Pressure's array of choices doesn't quite feel as "consequential" as one might expect of the typical Telltale pitch, the new episode improves on the promise of the first outing's strengths in characterization, while still building up the main narrative into something a tad more engaging. Only the future will be able to show if these decisions will snowball properly, but the series now has me wanting to actually see that eventuality, which means it's done its job.

Guardians as a game are just a faint shadow of the movie, so just the most devoted comic and movie fans can find something good here. It's not really bad, but Telltale definitely can do better. They can still improve a lot before the series end.