The Walking Dead: Michonne: A Mini Experience

The Walking Dead: Michonne, a three episode gaming experience, is the most recent The Walking Dead edition from Telltale Games. It follows a similar structure as the previous titles, yet falls short of emulating their success primarily due being limited in time, depth, and character development.

Pros

• Story: The story, although rather short, is compelling and interesting.
• Music: As with the previous TWD TellTale games, the music creates an engrossing feeling of despair that is so integral to the series. And it seems, with this iteration, Telltale corrected the awkward audio level mixing (music, voices, SFX) that was often not properly leveled before.
• Intro: The intro is reminiscent of a high-quality TV show, and generates a truly episodic feel.
• Michonne: A deeper, closer look at one of the most interesting characters from both the comic and the show.

Cons

• Short: The game, in total, across all three episodes, is incredibly short. To be fair, Telltale Games warns us of this ahead of time, to properly set expectations. Warning or not, the limited experience restricts the story from properly breathing, meaning that characters and storylines don't receive the detail, and thus, emotional connection, they deserve.
• Limited Choices: The game is lacking any real sense of impactful choice, unlike the versions before it.
• Animation issues: Some animations are rough around the edges and could benefit from some polish time.
• No skipping: The inability to skip the teaser for “scenes from next time”, the “previously seen” edit/montage, and the end credits that follow each episode is a big let down. Consider that many players will experience all three episodes back-to-back, as I did, resulting in the edit for “next time” unnecessarily appearing when you are about to play the next episode. Whereas, compound that with that fact that “previously” is redundant, considering you literally just completed the last episode.

Summary
All in all, Michonne doesn't have the same gritty and dark feeling of previous iterations, which is mainly lacking due to the short experience that doesn't allow for true depth. The game really feels like it is about to take off right as it is ending.